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1991

The Form and Function of Constructed Dialoguein Reported Discourse.Terrie Dawn MathisLouisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College

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Recommended CitationMathis, Terrie Dawn, "The Form and Function of Constructed Dialogue in Reported Discourse." (1991). LSU Historical Dissertationsand Theses. 5259.https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/5259

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T h e form and fu n ctio n o f c o n stru c ted d ia logu e in rep orted d iscou rse

M athis, Terrie Dawn, Ph .D .

T h e L ouisiana S ta te U niversity and A gricu ltu ra l and M echanical Col., 1991

C o p y r ig h t © 1 9 9 2 b y M a th is , T err ie D a w n . A ll r ig h ts r e se r v e d .

300 N. Zecb Rd.Ann Arbor, MI 4K106

THE FORM AND FUNCTION OF CONSTRUCTED DIALOGUE IN REPORTED DISCOURSE

A Dissertation

Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana Stater University and

Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

i n

The Interdepartmental Program in Linguistics

byTerrie Mathis

B.A., Southern Illinois University, 1986 M .A . in Linguistics, Louisiana State University,

December 19911990

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I an obliged to several persons whose assistance made possible the work presented here. Deepest thanks goes to George Yule who supported both me and my work. Special appreciation goes also to Jill Brody for her support and encouragement, as well as to my other committee members —

Hugh Buckingham, Carl Blyth and Sara Liggett. Thanks also to friends, including in part— Suzy, Leigh, Haile, Lisa, Leslie, Doris, Scott and David— all of whom illustrated to me the vitality of conversation. Thanks also to Connie Diniz for her assistance.

Special thanks goes to the speakers whose conversations are represented here. Although the relationships which were so vital to the interactions have dissolved or altered, a record of a few moments of these relationships remains.

ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

IB®A CK N O W L E D G E M E N T S ................................................... ii

A B S T R A C T ............................................................ iv

CHAPTER1 REVIEW OF LITERATURE ................................ 1

introduction .......................................... 1Grammatical Tradition .............................. 3Literary Tradition .................................. 8

2 REVIEW OF LITERATURE ................................ 30Conversation Analysis .................. 30

3 DESCRIPTION OF DATA .................................. 63

4 BE LIKE ................................................. 93

5 ZERO-QUOTATIVE ........................................ 1276 CONCLUSION ............................................. 171

BIBL I O G R A P H Y ....................................................... 176

A P P E N D I X ............................................................ 184

V I T A ................................................................. 200

i i i

ABSTRACT

In this study of constructed dialogue in natural conversations involving four American women, attention is drawn to how reporting speakers make use of different quotative forms to introduce utterances represented with direct speech forms. There is an attempt to account for the functions of such quotative forms in terms of discourse structure and the interpersonal relationships of the participants. In one closely-examined narrative, the present tense forms of several quotatives (is, savs. goes. and be like) are used to introduce constructed dialogue which seems to be that part of the narrative that the speaker intends to foreground, while the past tense is reserved for background details which set the stage for the drama. Furthermore, be like is reserved for one character, and appears to be used to mark the nearness of the character to the source of the narrative. That be like is a marker of closeness to the source of a telling may be further supported by the fact that be like occurs with greater frequency as a quotative with reports attributed to first person speakers than third person speakers.

Another feature of constructed dialogue which is analyzed is the use of zero-quotative. This term is used to refer to the absence of both an introducing verb and attributed speaker before direct speech forms. Zero-quotatives appear to be favored when the omission of a quotative may serve some dramatic effect, such as being an iconic representation of one

iv

aspect, of the reported interaction. Zero-quotatives also are favored at sites where the participants display strong convergence behavior. At such sites, although the constructed utterances are referentially attributed to only one of the speakers, the absence of a quotative allows the speakers to avoid explicitly attributing the utterances to either speaker, thus allowing them to stress their similarity by constructing utterances which may be spoken by either. Where direct speech forms appearing without a quotative must be referentially attributed to another character, the lack of explicit attribution again allows the speakers to merge their voices to underscore their shared knowledge and experience.

v

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

INTRODUCTIONReported speech is speech within speech, utterance within utterance, and at the same time also speech about speech,

utterance about utterance (Voloshinov, 1986, p. 115).

Traditional grammarians typically describe reports of

speech by assuming the existence of a derivational relationship between what they consider to be the two main

modes of report available: direct and indirect discourse.

Those who work in the literary realm have largely been

absorbed with the verification of whose voice is being

represented within the reported discourse. Notions such as

b i v o c a l i t y and multivo c a l i t y have been proposed to account for

the presence of the author's, the narrator's, and the

character's voice. In the study of everyday spoken discourse,

much less attention has been paid to whose voice is being

represented. While not a major issue of the literary study of

reported discourse, a recent concern in spoken discourse is

whether or not reports of other persons' speech should be

treated as verbatim. For reasons to be explored in Chapters

2 and 4, I will generally treat reports of other persons' talk

by using the term "constructed dialogue."

1

2In this study of constructed dialogue in conversational

interaction, I will draw attention to how reporting speakers

introduce the constructed dialogue with different quotative

forms. I will attempt to account for the functions of such forms in terms of discourse organization and the interpersonal

relationships of the participants.

Given that my analysis will be in terms of discourse organization and the interpersonal relationships of the

participants, it follows that the data to be examined is taken

from natural conversation settings among friends. The type of analysis to be done will be essentially descriptive in nature.

I will not propose rules which account for the use of particular quotative forms in particular environments but will

suggest that particular quotative forms appear to be favored

at certain sites because of certain functions which the

quotative forms perform.In the rest of this chapter, I will first briefly review

the account of reported speech usually given by traditional grammarians. I will then review the work of those analyzing

reported discourse within the literary tradition, specifically

within the area of poetics. In the following chapter I will

review relevant topics and analyses in the study of discourse

within conversation. Chapter 3 will present a d e scription of

the data, its collection, transcription conventions, and

problems encountered in all of these areas. In Chapter 4, I will present a fine-grained analysis of the use of constructed

3dialogue in the structural organization of one narrative,

p a r t i c u l a r l y focusing on the occurrence and function of be

like in contrast to other quotative forms. In Chapter 5, I

will investigate the use of zero-quotative in conjunction with

constructed dialogue and attempt to present an account of how

such forms must be interpreted.

GRAMM A T I C A L TRADITION

Grammar handbooks typically offer two ways to report an

utterance: directly or indirectly. Guth (1984) gives a

typical account of direct and indirect report: if the report

is a reproduction of someone's exact words, then the report is

direct; if the report is someone else's ideas put into the

current speaker's or writer's own words, then the report is

indirect. Several handbooks do nothing more than show where

the quotation marks and other punctuation go when giving a direct report (Perrin, 1988; Howell & Memering, 1986; Guth,

1984; Hodges & Whitten, 1982; Watkins & Dillingham, 1982 ;

Warriner, Mersand, Townsend & Griffith, 1973). Other

handbooks mention the necessary change in tenses, pronouns,

and spatial and temporal adverbs when transforming a direct

quote into an indi rec t quote (Fe i g e n b a u m , 1985 ). An

underlying assumption of the handbooks' rules concerning how

to report discourse is that the indirect form is always based

on a direct form. Furthermore, they assume that one can

retrieve the direct from the indirect form by reversing the

4rules. For example, Howell and Hemering (1986) warn writers not to enclose in quotation marks the reported clause in the following sentence: He said that the big citv was not for himor his family. The direct form of the reported clause with the proper punctuation, from which the indirect form is assumed to derive, is then given: He said. "The big citv isnot for me or mv family" (p. 206).

The following summary of the mechanics involved in transforming direct discourse (DD) to indirect discourse (ID) is fairly representative:

1. No quotation marks and optional insertion of the conjunction that before reported declaratives;2. Shift of personal and possessive pronouns from first or second person to third person;3. Back-shift of verb tenses: present tense becomes past tense; past and present perfect become past perfect;4. Conversion of deictic elements: demonstratives (this and that) and temporal and spatial adverbs;5. Transformation of direct questions and exclamations;6. Transformation of direct imperatives;7. Barring of certain features like vocatives, interjections, lexical dialectal features.(McHale, 1978, p. 251-252)Quirk & Greenbaum (1973) mention one other type of

reported speech: free indirect speech (I will refer to thistype of speech as free indirect discourse (FID)). They

5describe it as "a half-way stage between direct and indirect speech" and claim that it "is used extensively in narrative writing" (p. 345). Syntactically, they describe it asessentially indirect speech except that the narrator omits the reporting clause and may include features of direct speech, such as direct questions. What signals that the words are not being presented directly is the presence of a back-shift in verb tenses and adjustments to pronouns, determiners, and adverbs. As an example of free indirect speech, they presentthe following:

So that was their plan, was it? He well knew their tricks, and would show them a thing or two before he was finished. Thank goodness he had been alerted, and that there were still a few honest people in the world, (p. 345)Similar to the transformations presented for deriving ID

from DD are those that McHale (1978) presents for deriving FID from ID.

1. Deletion of the reporting verb of saying/thinking (though it may appear as a comment clause) and the conjunction that:2. Retention of the shift of person and back-shift of tenses characteristic of ID;3. Reinstatement of deictic elements of DD;4. Reinstatement of the word order of direct questions;5. Reinstatement of DD features such as interjections, (p. 252)

6Criticism of the Derivational Approach

As is clear from the preceding section, there is a general tendency among those describing types of reported discourse to assume a straightforward derivational relationship between the different possible forms. This approach has come in for criticism on a number of different fronts.

Banfield (1982) argues for the impossibility of there being a derivational relationship between DD and ID. She first attacks the popular notion of ID being derived from DD. One obstacle to this supposed relationship is the transformation of nouns. For instance, it isn't necessarily possible to retrieve the original utterance from an indirect report such as "Sue said that he was an idiot." The pronoun he could have as its underlying noun any number of possibilities. The transformation deriving would have to replace the possible noun phrases of the direct version which is a violation of Chomsky's (1965) recoverability condition on deletions. A similar obstacle is presented by deicticadverbs of time and place. The problem arises because the deictics in ID refer to the quoting time and place and not to the quoted time and place (the deictic center of the quoted utterance). Wierzbicka (1974) also discusses the problems associated with pronoun shifts when attempting to derive ID from DD. An indirect report like Marv said that she was wrong would be assumed to derive from Marv said. "I am wrong” .

7However, an identical indirect report could be used to report Marv said. "Amv is wrong” .

As McCawley (1988) has noted, there are some questions in English which can be reported, but not asked, as in I asked Jerrv what John had bought and Marv would borrow (p. 286). The unacceptable direct question which would be derived from this indirect report is What has John bought and will Mary borrow? Banfield (1982) also lists some communication verbs which are appropriate only with indirect reports (p. 35). Forexample, MThe dealer recommended that he trv the lessexpensive one*1 could have several potential single direct speech sources or the accumulation of several different direct speech forms. Sentences of indirect discourse can also be qualified in ways that direct discourse cannot. For example, "Marx wrote.that religion lulls the people into accepting their condition, but I don't remember how he phrased it" could not possibly be derived from direct discourse (p. 36).

Banfield also argues that DD cannot be derived from ID. One reason for this impossibility arises from the fact that DD can have expressive elements that ID cannot. For example, what would be the indirect rendering of "He shouted. * Christ. how it heightens the torturei'" (p. 31)? Or, how would one account for the vocative in "The private answered. /Sir. I cannot carry out these orders.*" (p. 33)? She concludes that "there is no straightforward, regular syntactic relation between the two types of quotation" (p. 37).

eL ITERARY T R ADITION

Thus far I have concentrated on the grammatical analysis

of reported speech and the essentially syntactic arguments for

or against the relationships between the different forms.

There is, however, a quite different approach possible to the

study of reported discourse. For those working in the

literary realm there are several overlapping taxonomies for

d e s c r i b i n g the forms used in reporting speech events. The

modes of report are usually placed along a continuum ranging

from greater narrator interference to lesser narrator

interference (Leech and Short, 1981), or from the purely

diegetic to the purely mimetic (McHale, 1978; R i m m o n - K e n a n ,

1983 ). The concepts of mimesis and diegesis date back to

Plato (Prince, 1987, p. 52). with mimesis, the poet speaks as

if s/he were the character, with little or no narrator

interference. With diegesis, the poet speaks with his/her own

voice, thus involving narratorial mediation. The notion of

mimesis must be qualified, however, before any discus s i o n of

modes of report may begin. As Rimmon-Kenan (1983) writes:

no text of narrative fiction can show or imitate the action it conveys, since all such texts are made of language, and language signifies without imitating. Language can only imitate language, which is why the representation of speech comes closest to pure mimesis,but even here . . . there is a narrator who 'quotes' thecharacters' speech, thus reducing the directness of showing. All that a narrative can do is create an illusion, an effect, a semblance of mimesis, but it does so through diegesis. (p. 108)

9Taking this perspective, one would say that the mimetic category simply functions as an end-point to the analytic continuum and is never actually instantiated in reported discourse.

Leech and Short (1981) present a scale which places the modes of report along a cline of greater to lesser narrator interference. Following is a description of their categories accompanied by examples, the first category involving the greatest amount of narrator control and the last involving the least amount.

1) Narrative report of speech acts (NRSA) - a mere report of a speech act in which the narrator does not make a commitment to giving the sense of what was said or how it was said.

(He promised to visit her again,)2) Indirect speech (IS) - narrator expresses what was said in the narrator's own words.

(He said that he would return there to see her the following day.^

3) Free indirect speech (FIS) - syntactically between is and DS. Either "a free form 'purporting to be IS" or "a more indirect form masquerading as DS."

(He would come back there to see her again tomorrow.)

104) Direct speech (DS) - verbatim report of what was said.

(He._ gaid, "i'll come back here to see you againtomorrow.11)

5) Free direct speech (FDS) - DS without the quotation marks and the introductory reporting clause.

(I'll come back here to see you again tomorrow.)(Leech & Short, 1981, pp. 318-327.)As is apparent from their descriptions of what are

basically syntactic categories. Leech and Short, like the traditional grammarians, also appear to be working with some type of derivational relationship between the different modes, all of which are based on some "original” direct utterance.

McHale (1978) discusses the weaknesses of the traditional grammatical description of reported description. Theassumption that ID and FID are derived from some original direct utterance is totally without basis when discussing fiction where

there is no direct ' original' prior to or behind an instance of ID or FID; the supposedly 'derived' utterances are not versions of anything, but themselves the 'originals' in that they give as much as the reader will ever learn of 'what was really said', (p. 256)

McHale suggests that in order to account for the relationshipsamong the types of reported discourse, categories of literaryrepresentation should be brought to the forefront andsyntactic categories pushed back. Following are categoriesand examples of each presented by McHale which may be placed

11on a scale from the purely diegetic to the purely mimetic1. The scale is not meant to be exhaustive, but a starting point.

i) Diegetic summary - involving only the bare report that a speech event has occurred, without any specification of what was said or how it was said.

When Charley got a little ain inside of him he started telling war yarns for the first time in his life- (Big Money. 295.)

ii) Summary, less 'purely' diegetic - summary which to some degree represents, not merely gives notice of, a speech event in that it names the topics of conversation.

He staved till late in the evening telling themafagut iGiraciUoug conversions unbelievers,extreme unction oh the_riring line, a vision of the young Christ he'd seen walking among the wounded in a dresslngstation during a gasattack. 219.)

iii) Indirect content-paraphrase - this type corresponds to the common characterization of ID as the paraphrase of the content of a speech event, without regard to the style or form of the supposed 'original' utterance.

The waiter told him that Carranza's troops had lost Torreon and that Villa and Zapata were closing in on the Federal District. (42nd Parallel, 320.)

iv) Indirect discourse, mimetic to some degree - this type of ID gives the illusion of 'preserving' or

12'reproducing' aspects of the style of an utterance, above and beyond the mere report of its content.

Joe said a hell of a lot of good It'd do him, his home was in Washington. D.C. f1919. 26.)

v) Free indirect discourse - not only grammatically intermediate between ID and DD, but also mimetically intermediate. FID may, in fact, be mimetic to almost any degree short of 'pure' mimesis.

Why the freU shouldn't they know. weren't theyoff'n her and out to see the goddam town and he'd better come_ along,. (1919. 43-44.)

vi) Direct discourse - the most purely mimetic type of report, though of course with the reservation that this 'purity' is a novelistic illusion; all novelistic dialogue is conventionalized or stylized to some degree.

Fred_summers said , "FellerSi this war's the mostgigantic cockeyed graft of the century and me for it and the cross red nurses.” (1212, 191.)

vii) Free direct discourse - nothing more than DD shornof its conventional orthographic cues.

Fainy's head suddenly got, very light. Bright bov^that's me, ambition and literary taste 8 , .Gee^ Imust finish Looking Backward .. .and iez, I likereading fine, an' I could run a linotype or set u pprint if anvbodv'd let me. Fifteen bucks a week. ,,pretty soft. ten dollars' raise. (42ndParallel. 22.)

(McHale, 1978, pp. 258-260)

13Choices and Effects of Modes of Reported Speech

Others have proposed similar scales or continua, but rather than dwell on lists of category types, I would now like to consider the different functions of these various reporting formats with a view toward determining what is gained by using one mode of reported discourse rather than another and what functions are exclusive to the particular modes of discourse. Most of the work answers these questions in terms of what FID can communicate that either DD or ID cannot. The most common functional distinction among the three modes is that DD allows the character's voice to be heard with a minimum of interference by the narrator, ID is the exclusive voice of the narrator, and FID allows for both the character's and the narrator's voices to be heard. Various functions can then be served by this bivocal or polyvocal effect.

Before discussing the possible bivocal or polyvocal effect of FID, it should be noted that Sternberg (1982) argues that all modes of reported discourse are multivoiced. Sternberg convincingly refutes the accepted view that DD echoes the voice of the reported speaker while routing the voice of the reporting speaker, and that ID mutes the voice of the reported speaker while giving voice only to the reporting speaker. I shall reconsider these issues after first describing the standard approach to voice in reported discourse.

14The traditional view that DD and ID are univocal while

FID is bivocal or polyvocal may be represented by Guiraud (1971) . Guiraud (pp. 82-83) writes that language has a dual function: that of objectively indicating the object that thespeaker is talking about (the predicative function) and that of expressing the feelings and emotions of the speaking subject (the locutive function). For every instance of reported discourse, whether it be DD, ID, or FID, there are two speakers (primary and secondary or reporter and reportee) and two speaking situations. In other words, there is the potential for two locutive messages and two predicative messages. The result of the syntax of ID which subordinates the secondary speaker's statement is that the secondary speaker's statement is "of a purely predicative type and implies no locutive message. For the latter is linked to the voice of the speaker, and the secondary speaker does not participate in the communication: he has no voice" (p. 84).Only the locutive message of the primary speaker is present.

With DD the primary speaker lends his/her voice to the secondary speaker effecting the preservation of the secondary speaker's locutive message, but in doing so loses his/her own voice. The primary speaker "loses the capacity to express the emotions and feelings that he experiences himself with regard to both the statement and the secondary speaker" (Guiraud, 1971, p. 84). So again one of the locutive messages of the reported discourse is lost.

15FID allows both locutive messages to be retained. For

example, by reporting the words in indirect style (changing the pronouns and verb tenses) , which allows for the primary speaker's locutive message to come through, but by using the vocabulary of the secondary speaker, both the primary and secondary speakers' voices can be represented. Inconversation, Guiraud suggests that FID can be achieved by the primary speaker uttering the secondary speaker's statement but in a tone of voice which expresses the primary speaker's feelings toward the statement.

Banfield (1982) also holds to the notion that only the reporting speaker's voice can be heard in ID because "the grammar does not allow one speaker to 'express' another's state" (p. 62) . The grammar she is referring to is one inwhich there is a distinction drawn between E(xpression)s and S(entence)s. Expressive elements (e-9- exclamatoryconstructions, repetitions and hesitations, incomplete sentences, direct addresses, dialect usages) may be contained in Es but not Ss. And for every E there can only be one SELF, that is only one voice can be heard. The quoted clause in ID is an S and so cannot contain expressive elements attributed to the quoted speaker. The E which frames the quoted clause can, on the other hand, contain expressive elements, but those elements must be attributed to the quoting speaker. In indirect speech the "quoting speaker interprets the content of the quoted speech in a propositional (S) form, removing all

16traces of the quoted speaker's expression or translating them into a descriptive form” (p. 62). The quoted clause of DD is an E itself which results in the capacity of DD to represent the expressive elements attributed to the quoted Speaker. That is, DD is composed of two Es, each E with its own voice. Only one voice can be represented in each E; the voice of the quoting Speaker cannot be represented within the quoted clause. The quoted E has its own Speaker.

Although the syntax of ID and DD is usually held as evidence that either the reporter's or reportee's voice is exclusively being represented, Sternberg (1982) claims that in fact both perspectives are present in either mode. ID, which syntactically eliminates the reportee's perspective, does not eliminate the reportee altogether, because the range of information reported is always constrained to some degree by the reportee. The syntax of indirect reporting also does not preclude a verbatim report of the reportee's words with the exception of mechanical shifts to the frame (i.e. deictic shifts). An indirect report such as "She said that she would start making everybody call him that in Houston" may very well be based on an original statement (supposing that there is indeed an original utterance) of "I'll start making everybody call him that in Houston." The point is that nothing in the grammar rules out the possibility that an indirect report may express the same fidelity to the original utterance (save for the deictic shifts) as a direct report.

17The duality of perspectives can also not be escaped with

DD. Bakhtin (1981, p. 340) writes "that the speech of another, once enclosed in a context, is - no matter how accurately transmitted - always subject to certain semantic changes." He continues, "Given the appropriate methods for framing, one may bring about fundamental changes even in another's utterance accurately quoted" (p. 340). Voloshinov (1986) also describes the interference of the author or narrator's voice with the voice to which the direct discourse is attributed. The author/narrator can so describe a character that any utterances attributed to him/her may have cast upon them "heavy shadows" (p. 134). For example, iflying is a trait of a character, then any of his/her utterances will be colored.

Sternberg discusses the impossibility of removing an element of one context into another context without changing the removed element. Because the reporter must inevitably recontextualize the quote, the reporter's perspective is never muted. The quoted portion is extracted from a "self-contained whole" to become "part of the framing whole" (Sternberg, 1982, p. 75) . What distinguishes Sternberg from Banfield on the point of DD and double voicing is Sternberg's insistence that within the quoted clause both the quoted and quoting speakers' voices are present. What in the end differentiates DD from other types of report is its double-centered deictic structure. The confusion regarding DD, according to

18Sternberg, is equating deictic and communicative autonomy.

Sternberg writes:From the fact that the inset is deict i c a l l y independent of the frame, it does not follow that the inset enjoys the communicative independence or inviolability distinctive of any normal s p e e c h - e v e n t , including the very one it represents. For once framed, an utterance becomes penetrable, manipulable, and hence essen t i a l l y ambiguous out of context, even in all that concerns deictic features, (pp. 110-111)While most controversy has been occasioned by the

d isti n c t i o n between direct and indirect discourse, the claimed

b i v o c a l i t y of FID is not an issue which has gone unchallenged.

Jesperson (1924) and Cohn (1966) argue that FID is from the

point of view of the narrator, while Banfield (1978, 1982)

believes that only the character's viewpoint is represented

(again one SELF per E). Host others feel that both the

c h aracter's and the narrator's viewpoints are represented,

while Ginsberg ( 1982 ) claims that FID is unique in that it

represents an utterance in which no one's voice is heard.

Jesperson (1924) divides indirect d i s course into two

types: dependent and represented speech. The former term

refers to the type of reported discourse more familiarly known

as indirect discourse. He labels it dependent because of its

syntactic dependence on a reporting verb of saying/thinking.The main syntactic difference between the two types of

indirect discourse, according to Jesperson, is that

represented speech may contain emotional elements, questions,

and commands, similar to D D . He writes:

19It is chiefly used in long connected narratives where the relation of happenings in the exterior world is interrupted . . by a report of what the personmentioned was saying or thinking at the time, as if these sayings or thoughts were the immediate continuation of the outward happenings, (p. 291)

It would appear then that Jesperson would consider that thespeaker of FID is the narrator who wishes to represent speechor thought in a way similar to how the narrator isrepresenting other events.

Cohn (1966) argues that the narrator is unobtrusivelypresent in this style of report, which she appropriatelyrefers to as narrated monologue. The use of spatial andtemporal markers of direct discourse is taken as evidence thatthe viewpoint is located within the character's psyche (p.105) . Because the sentences of narrated monologue appear withthe same person and tense of simple narration, "inner andouter world become one, eliminating explicit distance betweenthe narrator and his creature" (p. 99). The narrator "is, ina sense, the imitator of his character's silent utterances"(p. 110). From this perspective, there is only the narrator'svoice.

Banfield (1978, 1982), believing that the style inquestion represents consciousness as well as speech, favors the term represented speech and thought. In contrast to Cohn, she argues that the use of represented speech and thought is a device whereby the author can erase the presence of the narrator, leaving only the representation of speech (verbal or preverbal) of the character. Essential to her argument is the

20distinction drawn between SPEAKER and SELF. The SPEAKER is defined as the referent of the first person pronoun and nay be coreferential with the SELF in first person discourse. SELF is def ined as Hthe consciousness to whom all expressive elements are ascribed" (1978, p. 299). The SELF is also associated with point of view. The SELF is coreferential with the third person in represented speech and thought. A sentence does not have a Speaker unless there are syntactic signs of a first person. Since, Banfield argues, sentences of represented speech and thought do not have such signs of a first person, there is no SPEAKER (which she equates with the narrator). Because these sentences are speakerless or narratorless, they present the point of view of the character only. She writes: "consciousness in this style isrepresented unmediated by any judging point of view. No one speaks in represented Es, although in them speech may be represented" (1982, p. 97). Thus, there are arguments for only a single voice in the form known as free indirect discourse (FID). There are, however, many more arguments against such a view.

The most popular characterization of FID is that it represents both the point of view of the narrator and the character. Voloshinov (1986) writes that quasi-direct discourse "expresses an active orientation . . . that imposes upon the reported utterance its own accents, which collide and interfere with the accents in the reported utterance" (p.

21154). Both the "character's accents" and the "author's accents" are combined "within the confines of one and the same linguistic construction" (p. 155).

Pascal (1977) writes that in FID we hear "a dual voice,which through vocabulary, sentence structure, and intonationsubtly fuses the two voices of the character and the narrator"(p. 26) . The narrator doesn't necessarily mimic thecharacter's thoughts since what FID represents may be a"condensation, an ordering of what goes on in the mind of thecharacter" (p. 26) . But even if the mimicry were complete,the narrator would not disappear. Pascal writes:

. . . the narrator is always effectively present in free indirect speech, even if only through the syntax of the passage, the shape and relationship of sentences, and the structure and design of a story. . . Above all, perhaps, as the agency that brings multiple and complex events into relationship with one another and leads them to an end that establishes, even if without explicit comment, an all-embracing meaning, (p. 137)Sternberg (1982), like Pascal, argues that the sentences

of FID are never narratorless. Because interior monologue (or FID) is representative of the thoughts of a character which may or may not be verbal, the narrator's presence is especially essential since these thoughts are put into words. As readers, we are not presented with thoughts in a preverbal stage; we are presented with a linguistic rendering of the thoughts. The narrator must be present to represent thesethoughts. Sternberg writes:

Interior monologue is typical of narrative rather than drama or film precisely because a narrator's intervention is necessary in order to lay open and give physical shape to the unuttered, (pp. 79-80)

22In no way can interior monologue be presented without intervention; there is no physical matter to be reproduced.

What are the signals that what is being presented is something other than pure narration or direct discourse? As McHale writes, we can't discuss the functions of FID unless the reader realizes that it is something different than pure narration or direct discourse. Some of the types of signals identified and described by McHale (1978) are (1) grammatical, (2) contextual, and (3) idiomatic.

(1) Several grammatical signals may indicate that a point of view different than the narrator's is being represented. They include the presence of non-modal conditionals, adverbials expressing certainty or doubt, and spatial and temporal terms which are oriented toward the character's deictic center, rather than to the deictic center of the narrator (p. 265). Sentences like "She ought to have known better than to ever believe him" or "Mavbe she could begin to believe him now" would seem anomalous in pure narrative. The narrator in such sentences is limiting his/her point to some extent to that of the character.

(2) Sentences near DD or ID sentences may be interpreted as FID. If a particular character is brought into focus in context, then FID sentences may be more readily attributed to the character (p. 268). For example, in the following extract from 1919. the reader's attention is directed to Maiden Evelina before the FID begins.

23The Maiden Evelina used to go into Miss Mathilda's room when she was out and look at herself for a long time In the lopkinqglass. Her hair wasn't mousy, it was quite fair if only they would let her have it curly instead ofin pigtails and even if eves weren't blue likeGeorge * s they had little green specks in then, Herforehead was noble. (1919. p. 109)(3) If the idiom or register being used appears to be one

that the narrator is not in the habit of using, then the FID sentence may be attributed to a character for which the idiom or register would be appropriate (p. 270).

If the effect of FID is bivocality, then what functions may be served? Nearly everyone (Ron, 1981; Cohn, 1966;McHale, 1978; Rimmon-Kenan, 1983) who writes about FIDmentions the possibility for irony or empathy.

Cohn (1966) writes about the possibility of achieving either a lyric or an ironic effect with narrated monologue, or FID. She writes that the mimetic quality of the form allows for "fusion with the subject, in which the actor identifies with, 'becomes' the person he imitates; or distance from the subject, a mock-identification that leads to caricature" (p. Ill). Sometimes, it is not apparent which possibility should be inferred. That ambiguity itself may be the desired effect of FID.

Rimmon-Kenan (1983) discusses using the sentences of FID to determine the implied author's (or, perhaps, narrator's)

24attitude toward the character!s) in question. By using the c haracter's idiom or by presenting information from the

character's point of view, the narrator seems to be aligning

with the character. But because the narrator has always a

distinct presence from the character, a distancing effect may

be created. Like Cohn, Rimmon-Kenan suggests that a m b iguity

between the two possibilities, irony and empathy, may be the

most interesting result of FID.

Both Rimmon-Kenan and McHale list the representation of

stream-o f - c o n s c i o u s n e s s as one of FlD's functions. McHale

(1978) writes:there is clearly one area where the empathetic function of FID and its function as strictly objective report must converge, where the only access to the utterance to be reported is through a kind of empathy, i.e., when FID serves as the vehicle of the s t r e a m - o f - c o n s c i o u s n e s s . (p. 276 )

Banfield (1978) disagrees that FID achieves an ironic

effect. She explains that for irony to be present within a

sentence, two contrasting points of view would have to be represented within it (p. 311). Her position, as d i s cussed

above, is that the sentences of represented speech and thought

only represent the point of view of the character. Thus,

there is no possibility for contrasting points of view wi t h i n

the same sentence. The interpretation of a sentence as ironic

must come from somewhere else in the text other than the

sentence. She writes:

25With irony, we have passed beyond the jurisdiction of grammar and hence, of what in narrative linguistics can comment on directly. But it should be stressed that the dual voice theory is not one which continues on where a linguistically based theory must stop. Rather, it is one which pronounces itself on the basis of unsupported linguistic assumptions and then retreats into the imprecise language of literary criticism when a counter­theory undercuts these assumptions. (p. 222)Banfield (1982) also claims that FID is an "exclusively

literary device" (p. 68). As mentioned earlier, Guiraud(1971) shows how FID can be achieved in conversation withintonation. Pascal (1977) writes that he himself uses FID innonliterary writing and also cites its presence in historicaland biographical writing. McHale mentions that it has beenin common use in newspaper writing.

Polanyi (1982) also presents evidence from aconversational narrative which disproves Banfield's claim.When a presenting a narrative, a storyteller may merge hervoice with the voice of one of the characters in the story.She writes:

these mergers of perspective, both in oral stories and literary texts, are symptomatic of the difficulties narrators face in encoding several levels of information simultaneously and should thus properly be seen as solutions of problems of reporting encountered by storytellers, regardless of medium or artistic intent, (pp. 155-156)

She cites an example from a conversation which involves a report about a movie plot. The line is "And he was telling Dolly, I don't want Dolly" (p. 159). Polanyi suspects that this style may be mainly used where there are three situational levels. She suggests that perhaps by using FID in

26the above communicative event, a speaker is allowed to both

tell a story directly as if she were a character in the movie

while simultaneously making it clear that she is reporting

what was actually experienced.

SUMMARYFrom previous studies of reported discourse which have

m ainly focused on written representations, there is no clear

consensus on how to describe and analyze the range of ways in

which one individual may report another's speech or thought.

One might suspect that this lack of consensus may reflect the

d i s parat e nature of the data under consideration and also the

different critical domains of interest among the writers

concerned. Among those who focus exclusively on the syntactic

representation "on the page," of whom Banfield (1982) and

Partee (1973) are primary examples, there is v i r t u a l l y no

interest or concern in the nature of the voice or voices

a r t i c u l a t i n g those sentences on the page. From such a

perspective, it is presumably easier to attribute a single

narrating voice and proceed to analyze the internal structure

of what is presented, linguistically, by that voice. There is

also a natural tendency to isolate and study in detail

sentence-level fragments of the literary data under scrutiny

and to attribute other claimed effects to contextual factors

not directly represented in the particular sentence structures

being analyzed.

27On the other hand, there are those such as Cohn (1966)

and Ste rnberg (1982) whose interests extend to the reader's

experience and interpretation of what is e n c ountered "on the page." indeed both these writers are wid e l y quoted in studies

on the oral performance of literature where the need for the

actual articulation of written lines of reported discourse

focuses a great deal of attention on what kind of "voice" is

to be attributed to particular sentences of the literary

narrative (cf. HopKins, 1991, for a review). Consequently, the potential for double-voicing of narrator and reported

character becomes a salient issue for such analysts and their

d e scriptive frameworks reflect such concerns. This approach

is also less concerned with the structure of single sentences

and more absorbed with how a character's represented speech is d e s i g n e d to reveal attitude and intention or even how the narrating character's attitude to the reported character's

words may be interpreted.

Given that the data to be investigated in the present

study will be approached from a perspective which has more in

common with that involved in d e termining how the reporter

represents more than just a reportee's words and thoughts, 1

shall be more inclined to follow the tradition that identifies

d o u b l e - v o i c i n g in reported discourse and attempts to account

for ironic effects present in the data being investigated. I

shall also look quite exclusively at the occurrence of

reported discourse in spoken language data within

28conversational settings and will consequently move on, in the next chapter, to a review of how those working in conversation analysis have approached the study of reported discourse.

The examples used by McHale are drawn from John Dos Passos's U.S.A. trilogy, the single volume Modern Library Edition.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

INTRODUCTION

In the previous chapter, the data which generated the

discussion concerning the verification of the voice being

represented in reported discourse was from written texts.

Reported discourse has also been examined in the domain of

conversational analysis. Because the nature of conversational

data necessarily differs in some respects from that of

literary data, the analysis of the types of data also differs.

However, as will be noted in greater detail in this chapter

and in Chapter 4, representations of reported discourse,

whether they occur in written or spoken texts, are

const r u e t e d .

In this chapter, I will first define and describe what is

meant by 'conversation' and then turn to a discus s i o n of

relevant topics within conversation analysis, such as turn-

taking, adjacency pairs, and preference structure. I'll also

m e ntion how conversational data is approa c h e d by social

psychologists, specifically with regard to a c commodation

theory and Brown and Levinson's (1978) work concerning "face."

Then, I'll discuss work concerning reported speech in

conversation. In particular, I will mention Clark and

Gerrig's (1990) work addressing quotations as d e m o n strations

w h ich includes suggested functions of quotations, Tannen's

30

31(1986,1989) work approaching direct speech forms as constructed dialogue, Schourup's (198 3) work concerning discourse markers occurring with direct speech forms, and Bublitz' (1988) discussion of speaker roles.

CONVERSATIONInstead of building theories based on an analysis of

literary data, conversation analysts examine naturallyoccurring conversations. A general definition of conversationis given by Levinson (1983):

that familiar predominant kind of talk in which two or more participants freely alternate in speaking, which generally occurs outside specific institutional settings like religious services, law courts, classrooms and the like. (p. 284)Bublitz (1988) offers three defining features of

conversation: spontaneity, reciprocity, and informality (pp.9-10). Spontaneity refers to the participants not having pre- pl anned their contributions. Reciprocity refers to the same rights and obligations being granted to each participant, thus eliminating, for example, teacher-student discourse in classrooms from the definition of conversation. Informality refers to the participants being on relatively equal footing; they have no need to be self-conscious about their talk. Using these defining criteria, it can be seen that conversational data is strikingly different from literary data. Although the process of reading written discourse is also an interactive process, the interaction is on a different plane than is the case with conversation.

32CONVERSATION ANALYSIS

Conversation analysis (CA) grew out of the field of ethnomethodology, the study of the "participants' own methods of production and interpretation of social interaction" (Levinson, 1983, p. 295). Heritage (1984) writes that "[a]t its most basic, the objective [of CA] is to describe the procedures and expectations in terms of which speakers produce their own behavior and interpret the behavior of others" (p. 241) .

Conversation analysts, like grammarians, propose rules which function to account for regularities of behavior. An important difference exists, however, between conversational rules and grammatical rules: conversational rules are amatter of choice while grammatical rules are not (Taylor and Cameron, 1987) . For example, one doesn't choose to follow the subjacency principle, but one may choose not to return a greeting. Another difference between the two types of rules is that conversational rules may change as the conversational context changes, while grammatical rules apply in any context. Conversationalists expect their behavior to be interpreted as produced with the relevant rules in mind whether they choose to follow or flout it. That is, they assume that their co­conversationalists, also being oriented towards the rule, will interpret their behavior as either conforming or not. If the behavior does not conform to the rule, there exists an account

33for the lack of conformity. Taylor and Cameron (1987) indiscussing the accountability of rules explain:

My behavior is designed in light of what I expect your reaction to it will be: i.e. you will react to it asconforming to the relevant rule or as in violation of it, thereby leading you to draw certain conclusions as to why I violated the rule. (p. 103).

The co-interactants may not be able to state a rule in the waylinguists do, but that they are orienting their behaviortowards the rule is evidenced by the interaction itself.Conversation analysts look to the conversation itself tosuggest categories of analysis.

To illustrate the kind of methodology employed byconversation analysts, I'll briefly mention three topics thatconversation analysts have examined in depth: turn-taking,adjacency pairs, and preference structure.

Turn-takinaPerhaps the most obvious quality of conversation is that

participants take turns. Turn-taking is usually taken for granted without questioning what rules govern it. How does the turn-taking in a conversation in American English proceed so that there is so little overlap and so few gaps? Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson (1974) attempt to spell out the rules for turn-taking. They argue that a turn-taking mechanism assigns turns to conversation participants. Sharrock and Anderson (1986) write that this turn-taking mechanism is not being offered as an astonishing revelation, "but precisely

34what it is, an obvious and central fact about conversation and, therefore, as something which must play a central and consequential role in organizing conversation" (p. 71). The rules may be compared to those of a marketplace where a commodity such as "the floor" is traded, offered, bid for, or taken over, and where the structure of the interaction is regarded as an "exchange" which involves the participants in "negotiation." The turns consist of units which are syntactic units such as sentences or noun phrases. At the end of each unit, there is the potential for a change in speakers. Where this potential exists is referred to as a transition relevance place (TRP) . The rules for the turn-taking system are as follows:

(1) For any turn, at the initial transition-relevance place of an initial turn-constructional unit:(a) If the turn-so-far is so constructed as to

involve the use of a 'current speaker selects next' technique, then the party so selected has the right and is obliged to take next turn to speak; no others have such rights or obligations, and transfer occurs at that place.

(b) If the turn-so-far is so constructed as not to involve the use of 'current speaker selects next' technique, then self-selection for next speakership may, but need not, be instituted;

35first starter acquires rights to a turn, and transfer occurs at that place.

(c) If the turn-so-far is so constructed as not to involve the use of 'current speaker selects next' technique, then current speaker may, but need not continue, unless another self­selects .

2. If, at the initial transition-relevance place of an initial turn-constructional unit, neither la nor lb has operated, and, following the provision of lc, current has continued, then the rule-set a-c reapplies at the next transition-relevance place, and recursively at each next transition-relevance place, until transfer is effected.(Sacks, Schegloff & Jefferson, 1974, p. 704)

These rules do not dictate what co-interactants do in a conversation, but are presented as "a formulation of the norms speakers and hearers 'orient' to in the management of the process of holding, securing, and giving up 'the floor' in conversation" (Taylor & Cameron, 1987, p. 108). By orienting to the norms, conversation may proceed in orderly fashion, without speakers overlapping their contributions excessively and without long, unexplainable pauses.

The rules also predict when an overlap might take place: (1) a non-current speaker may be anticipating a TRP and may self-select before the current speaker has indeed reached the

36TRP or (2) two speakers may self-select simultaneously. The following is an example of overlap where a non-current speaker anticipates a TRP:

"A: What's yer name again please [sir,B: [F. T. Galloway*'(Sacks, Schegloff & Anderson, 1974, p. 708)

Here B expects that A wil1 stop speaking after "please" and provides an answer to A's question before A has finished. An example of two speakers simultaneously self-selecting follows:

"Mike: I know who d' guy is.=Vic: =[He's ba::d .James: =[You know the gu:y?"(Sacks, Schegloff & Anderson, 1974, p. 707)The rules also predict that pauses which occur after the

current speaker has selected the next speaker will be significant. An example drawn from Atkinson and Drew (1979) illustrates the participants' orientation to the rules:

"A: Is there something bothering you or not?(1 .0 )

A: Yes or no(1.5)

A : Eh?B: No."(Atkinson & Drew, 1979, p. 52)

In A's first turn, A selects a next speaker (B). That B fails to take the next turn results in a reduced repetition of the

37original question. After B fails to respond again after being selected as the next speaker, A once again gives an abbreviated version of the question, letting B know that B's lack of response is being noted and that a reply is expected.

Adjacency pairsRelated to the turn-taking mechanism are adjacency pairs.

A speaker cannot use just any utterance to select the next speaker. As Sacks, Schegloff, and Jefferson (1974) note, adjacency pair first parts are used to accomplish next selection. These first parts may be questions, offers, assessments, greetings, etc. Taylor and Cameron (1987) write that the principles on which CA are based are "most usefully and obviously employed" in the notion of the adjacency pair (p. 109) . Adjacency pairs are characterized by Schegloff and Sacks along the following lines:

adjacency pairs are sequences of two utterances that are:(i) adjacent(ii) produced by different speakers(iii) ordered as a first part and a second part(iv) typed, so that a particular first part requires a

particular second (or range of second parts) - e.g. offers require acceptances or rejections, greetings require greetings, and so on

38and there is a rule governing the use of adjacency pairs,

n a m e l y :Having produced a first part of some pair, current

speaker must stop speaking, and next speaker must

produce at that point a second part to the same

pai r

(Levinson, 1983, pp. 304-5).

Again, the adjacency pair rule doesn't determine a

conversation participant's behavior, but rather the rule is a

norm to which the participants are oriented. When a first

pair part is not followed by a relevant second pair part, the

interactants will account for its absence. Heritage (1984)

wr i t e s :when the relevant 'next' occurs, it is chara c t e r i s t i c a l l y treated as requiring no special e x p l a n a n t i o n : arelevantly produced next action is specifically non- accountable. ... When the relevanced or appropriate 'next' does not occur however, the matter is specially accountable. In such circumstances, accounts may be offered by the party whose conduct has not met the relevant expectation. Or, alternatively, the conduct may become the object of special inferences and thus be explained by invoking aspects of the circumstances of the action, or the role identity, personality, goals, motives, etc. of the breaching party. 253)

An example provided by Levinson (1983) illustrates the

adj a c e n c y pair structure:

C: So I was wondering would you be in your office on

Monday (.) by any chance?

(2 .0 )C: Probably not

R: Hmm yes»

39C: -You would?

Ri YaC: So if we came by could you give us ten minutes of

your time? (p. 320)

C expects a response to C's question; a response is due. When

it is not forthcoming, C interprets the silence as a negative

response. That is, C accounts for the silence. C appears to

believe that a lack of response following a request should be

interpreted as a refusal. The next section offers an

e x p lanat ion for C's assumption.

Preference structureReferring to the previous example, C assumes that a lack

of response following a request conveys a refusal. The notion

of preference structures may explain this inference made by C.

Not all responses which are made relevant by a first pair part

(such as a request) are equal; some are preferred. Though

there appears to be some confusion over the notion of

preference (see Taylor and Cameron, 1987; Bilmes, 1988;

Levinson, 1983), most writers are quick to assert that

preference is not a psychological term. It does not refer to

the conversation participants' personal preferences. Rather

it refers to the structure of preferred and d i s p r eferred

responses. Following a request, for example, either an

acceptance or a refusal are relevant responses. However, one

may be preferred. Bilmes (1988) writes:

40When the first item is not followed by a relevant reply, the preferred response is absent in a special way. In a sense, it is 'more absent' than the other items in the set. From its absence, one may infer that some other item in the set is covertly present. From the absence of acceptance, one may infer refusal, (p. 166)

During the silence that follows C's request in the exampleabove, an acceptance is more absent than a refusal. Anacceptance is the preferred response; in its absence, C infersthat a refusal is present.

Another example may further illustrate the structure.Ch: Can I go down an see 'im

(2 .0)()(1 .8)C ' m o : : n (1 .6)Come'n te see 'im (1 .6 )C 'mo::n

M: No:::{Levinson, 1983, p. 335)

The absence of a reply is interpreted by the child as a refusal; an acceptance is more absent than a refusal. A trickier child might have taken the lack of response as an acceptance but would have, in all likelihood, been quickly corrected.

41Pomerantz (1984) discusses preference structure in terms

of first assessment/second assessment adjacency pairs. An initial assessment makes relevant a second assessment. The provider of the second assessment may either agree or disagree with the prior speaker's assessment. However, the initial assessment may invite one over the other. The assessment which appears to be invited is called a preferred next action and the other, a dispreferred next action. The turn which contains the preferred next action is organized differently from the one which contains the dispreferred next action. Pomerantz writes, "In general, agreement turns/sequences are structured so as to maximize occurrences of stated agreements and disagreement turn/sequences so as to minimize occurrences of stated disagreements" (p. 64). Levinson (1983) presents the following features of dispreferred seconds (only some of which are relevant for the initial assessment/second assessment adjacency pair):

(a) delays: (i) by pause before delivery, (ii) by theuse of a preface (see (b)), (iii) by displacement over a number of turns via use of repair initiators or insertion sequences

(b) prefaces: (i) the use of markers or announcers ofdispreferreds like Sib and Well, (ii) the production of token agreements before disagreements, (iii) the use of appreciations if relevant . . ., (iv) theuse of apologies if relevant . . ., ((v) the use of

qualifiers . . ., (vi) hesitation in various forms, including self-editing

(c) accounts: carefully formulated explanations for whythe (dispreferred) act is being done

(d) declination component: of a form suited to thenature of the first part of the pair, butcharacteristically indirect or mitigated, (pp. 334- 5)

The following example is one among several presented by Pomerantz (1984) which gives support to her argument. In this example, the dispreferred second occurs with a weak token agreement followed by a weak disagreement.

W: . . . The-the way X feel about it i:s, that as longas she cooperates, an'-an' she belie:ves that she's running my li:fe, or, you know, or directing it one way or anothuh, and she feels happy about it, I dowhatever I please (h)any (h)wa(h) HHH! [( )

L: [Yeah.L: We::11 - eh-that's true: - I mean eh-that's

alright, — uhb-ut uh, ez long ez you do::. But h-it's-eh-to me::, — after anyone . . . (p. 74)

The dispreferred second is marked with delays, with the use of markers fWei1 and uh ) , with a token agreement, and with theuse of qualifiers (But h-it's-eh-to me::).

These same dispreferred markers occur with the other dispreferred seconds of adjacency pairs, such as agreeing with

43a speaker's self-deprecation or refusing an invitation. The notion of preference illustrates how conversational rules shape a conversation (Taylor and Cameron, 1987). Conversation participants show their awareness of the preference structure even if they do not perform the preferred action. For example, if an invitation is rejected, interactants still show an awareness that acceptance is the preferred response by marking the dispreferred response with those markers mentioned above. In other words, conversation participants show an orientation to the preference structure and they operate with the expectation that their interactants have a similar orientation.

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGYAs has been seen, Pomerantz focuses on the organizational

structure of the conversation when discussing the notion of adjacency pairs and preference. The rules that she claims interactants are oriented to were formulated after observing the structure of the conversation itself. Emphasis is placed on the sequence of the interactants' utterances. Emphasis could however be placed on the interactional needs and goals of the participants. The focus would then be on how the negotiated relationship between the participants shapes the conversation. An approach of this type is taken by social psychologists.

44Allport (1985) writes that social psychologists "attempt

understand and explain how tile thoughts feeling. andbehavior sf individuals are influenced by ths actual.imagined, or implied presence of others" (p* 3). Sincelanguage is a social tool, its use has been given attention (however limited) by social psychologists. To illustrate social psychology's emphasis on the social interaction between the conversation participants rather than on the organizational structure of the conversation, I'll briefly discuss the topic of convergence.

When two people talk, who already like each other or hope to like each other, they tend to begin to sound more like each other. Either one or both the interactants modify their speaking style to sound more like their interlocutor. This convergent behavior is called "interpersonal accommodation" (Fishman and Giles, 1978, p. 389). Convergence is defined as "a lingui stic strategy whereby individuals adapt to each other's speech by means of a wide range of linguistic features, including speech rates, pauses and utterance length, pronunciations and so on" (Giles, Mulac, Bradac, and Johnson, 1987, p. 14). (Speakers can also diverge from one another by accentuating the differences in speaking style between them.) Accommodation theory has its roots in the research done with similarity-attraction. The research suggests that the more similar one person becomes to another, the more likely the latter will like the former. One way a person can become more

45like another is through speech style. If dissimilarities between two persons can be reduced in part by either one or both speakers accommodating the speech style of the other, then the greater is the likelihood that one or both speakers will be perceived favorably. Accommodation theory also suggests that the greater a person's need to be liked, the greater will be the tendency for that person to converge.

Brown and Levinson (1978) view conversation as being shaped by the sociological needs of its participants. These needs are reflected in the interaction. They believe that "patterns of message construction, or 'ways of putting things', or simply language usage, are part of the very stuff that social relationships are made of. . ." (p. 60) . Theyalso write that since interaction is simultaneously the "expression of social relationships" and "crucially built out of strategic language use," the construction of messages is "the key locus of the interface of language and society" (p. 61). They argue that all conversation is shaped by the interactants overriding concern with face, "the puolic self- image that every member wants to claim for himself" (p. 66). Face can be lost, enhanced, or maintained. Generally, interactants work together to maintain or enhance their own face, while simultaneously protecting the face of their interlocutor. Brown and Levinson suggest that face is composed of two aspects: positive face and negative face.Negative face is "the want of every 'competent adult member'

46that his actions be unimpeded by others" (p. 67). Positive face is "the want of every member that his wants be desirable to at least some others" (p. 67) . Certain kinds of actsintrinsically threaten face. For example, requests impinge upon the hearer's negative face, the desire that the hearer's actions be unimpeded. If a speaker making the request is attending to the negative face wants of the hearer, the speaker may soften the request by, for example, giving the hearer a way out or by apologizing for the intrusion on the hearer's time, etc. When the speaker shows such attention and regard for the hearer's negative face, the speaker is said to be showing negative politeness.

With this notion of face and politeness, one can approach the structure of an adjacency pair from a different angle. For example, why do disagreements with assessments occur with the markers mentioned above? Brown and Levinson would attribute the structure of these pairs to the desire of the interactants to preserve face, both their own and each other's. Positive politeness is concerned with showing that the hearer's wants are desirable. One way to show desirability is to communicate that the speaker's wants are similar to those of the hearer's. Stressing common ground is a means to express the similarity in wants. If common ground is being stressed, then the speaker would not want to disagree with the interlocutor. "The desire to agree or appear to agree with H[earer] leads . . . to mechanisms for pretending

47to agree, instances of 'token' agreement" (Brown and Levinson, 1978, p. 118). So the example given above by Pomerantz and shown here again would be accounted for by claiming that L isbeing mindful of W's positive face.

W: . . . The-the way X feel about it i:s, that as longas she cooperates, an'-an' she belie:ves that she's running my li:fe, or, you know, or directing it one way or anothuh, and she feels happy about it, I do whatever I please (h)any (h)wa(h) HHH! [( )

L: [Yeah.L: We::11 - eh-that's true: - I mean eh-that's

alright, — uhb-ut uh, ez long ez you do::. But fl­it's-eh-to me::, — after anyone . . .

(Pomerantz, 1984, p. 74}L shows positive politeness by showing reluctance to disagree with W. Even if disagreement must occur, L can indicate the desire that W's positive face be satisfied by not baldly disagreeing.

DISCOURSE MARKERSAs was noted above, one feature of a dispreferred

response are prefaces to the response which may include such items as wel1 . Such an item is commonly called a discourse marker. Discourse markers have been defined as "sequentially dependent elements which bracket units of talk" (Schiffrin, 1987, p. 31) and as "linguistic expression(s ] that [are] used

48to signal the relation of an utterance to the immediate context" (Redeker, 1990, p. 372).

In his discussion of discourse markers, Schourup (1982) suggests that a discourse marker "mediates in a specific way between the covert thinking of conversants and what they do in the way of talk and other external behaviors" (p. 2). Hesuggests that in a conversation between two speakers there is a private world (the mind of each speaker himself or herself), an other world (the mind of the interlocutor) and a shared world (the interaction between the private and other worlds). He suggests that discourse markers belong to the class of evincives, "a linguistic item that indicates that at the moment at which it is said the speaker is engaged in, or has just been engaged in, thinking; the evincive item indicates that this thinking is now occurring or has just now occurred but does not completely specify its content" (p. 14).

Schourup examines the function of one such marker, like. in the context of constructed dialogue. He suggests that the overall evincive use of like is to indicate that there may exist a discrepancy between what is in the private world (what is meant) and what is in the shared world (what is said) (p. 31). For example, like introducing direct speech forms may indicate that there may be a discrepancy between what the speaker is reporting as having been said and what was actually said. He suggests that like may be used by some speakers to indicate that what is to follow in direct speech forms is

49actually an approximation of what was thought ("internal speaker reactions" (p. 33)) rather than what was said. He writes that since "speakers are aware of the inexact nature of retrospective quotations. . . it is perfectly appropriate toindicate that what the speaker reports as having occurred is only 1 ike what may have actually been said" (p. 35) .

Well is another discourse marker discussed in the context of direct speech forms. The evincive use suggested for well is to make explicit the fact that the current speaker is now examining the contents of the private world with the intentions that the addressee will make some inferences from this explicitness (Schourup, 1982, p. 49). For example, by bracketing a topic shift with well. speakers indicate that they realize that they are shifting the topic and that they expect the addressees to ascribe a motive to the shift (getting back to the business at hand, for example) (p. 53). Well is observed to frequently be the initial word of a direct speech form. For example:

"... and she goes "Well if my check's big enough I'll buy ya an eight- or a twelve pack ... " (p. 24)

In direct speech forms, well. which is attributed to the reported speaker, "invokes a situation in which the quoted speaker may be seen as having spoken out of some then-current consideration and thereby situates the quotation as an integral part of some nonpresent situation" (p. 51).

50While many discourse markers have been examined by

Schourup, Schiffrin and others, some forms, such as really. have received little attention, especially in terms of constructed dialogue. I will attempt to describe, in Chapter 3, some of the environments in which these forms occur, with particular reference to reported discourse in conversation.

QUOTATIONS AS DEMONSTRATIONSClark and Gerrig (1990) suggest that instances of

reported speech in direct speech forms should be treated as demonstrations. Most language theories hold that all language use is descriptive. Clark and Gerrig write that " [t Jhe prototypical quotation is a demonstration of what a person did in saying something" (p. 769). Demonstrations are classified as nonserious actions, which are actions that are not literally occurring. Nonserious actions are "transformations of serious actions" (p. 766). They are patterned on a serious activity but are not interpreted as serious actions. For example, imitating someone's limp is a nonserious action. While it is patterned on a serious action, the demonstration does not receive the same interpretation as the actual limp. Similarly, when a person presents a quotation, the person is not intending that the utterance be interpreted as actually occurring in the current situation, but is only a demonstration of a speech event.

51Demonstrations also depict rather than describe their

referents. Furthermore, they selectively depict particular aspects of the referent. The person demonstrating the limp may not be attempting to imitate every aspect of the original limp, but only what the demonstrator considers the significant aspects. Whenever an aspect is marked, that aspect is intended to be identified as nonincidental (p. 774) . Withregard to quotations, aspects of the referent which can be marked include register, voice pitch, voice quality, and emotional state.

Quotations can also depict nonlinguistic actions. The verb "to go" usually introduces such actions. For example - - When you•ve finished, iust w i b e l c h l and I'll know you've

had enough (p. 781) .Clark and Gerrig suggest particular functions served by

quotations such as avoiding responsibility for the content of a quotation, showing solidarity, and dramatizing an event. Below, each of these functions will be discussed.

Pis p 1 acejnent.of responsibilityClark and Gerrig (1990) suggest that when speakers

describe (e.g. with indirect speech), they take full responsibility for their wording. When constructingquotations, responsibility for the depicted aspects lies with the source speaker.

52Wierzbicka (1974) also argues that a reporting speaker

escapes responsiblity for the content of the report by placing the utterance in direct speech forms. She writes that thespeaker of the quotative sentence "does something that enables the hearer to see for himself what it [the content] is, that is to say, in a way, he shows this content" (p. 282) . By showing rather than describing the content, the speaker avoids taking responsibility for the quote.

Brenneis (1986) mentions reported (or direct) speech as an example of the indirection of language. By indirection he is referring to meaning which lies outside as well as within a text. In particular, "indirection implies something about the speaker's stance vis-a-vis his or her message" (p. 341). Brenneis writes that indirection usually allows the speaker to take less than full responsibility for what is said. Voice- centered indirection depends upon hearers not being clear about who is responsible for the message presented by the speaker. One type of voice-centered indirection is"ventriloquism through reported speech" (p. 343). Because the reported utterance is heard from the mouth of the reporting speaker rather than from that of the reported speaker, the hearer may be unclear about who is actually responsible for the content of the message.

Brody's (1991) discussion of the function of constructed dialogue in Tojolab'al women's conversation is an excellent example of quotatations being used to displace responsibility.

53At issue during the conversation is whether the women present are traditionally Tojolab'al or are striving to assimilate into the Ladino world. A sign of their allegiance to the Tojolab'al culture is raising their children to speak Tojolab'al rather than Spanish. The samples of constructed dialogue are from a section of the conversation in which the participants are involved in teasing talk. As Clark and Gerrig (1990) as well as Brody note, teasing talk is a non­serious activity. This type of talk creates ambiguity; as Brody (1991) writes, "the question arises whether the talk is only playful or if it could also be serious" (p. 8). Because of the ambiguity which arises with this type of talk, the conversation participants are able to question one another's allegiance to their culture while, at the same time, being mindful of the value that culture places on community cohesion.

During the teasing talk, one of the women asks the child of another woman if the child knows Tojolab'al. Since the child is too young to speak, the question is being indirectly asked of the child's mother. The mother, in turn, answers the question by constructing dialogue which she attributes to her child. By communicating indirectly through the child, the women are able to displace responsibility for what is being said. Through this indirection, as well as through the ambiguity involved in the teasing talk, the women are able to criticize one another while appearing to be cooperative.

54Solidarity

Another function of quotations is solidarity (Clark and

Gerrig, 1990). Since speakers only selectively depict aspects of an action with a quotation, the assumption is that they

expect their addressees to share the background knowledge

necessary to interpret the quotation. Such an assumption shows

solidarity, as Grown and Levinson (1978) have also argued

because the less explanation that accompanies a report, the

greater the indication that the reporter expects to share

"common ground" with the listener. There is a general notion that economy in message-structure and an absence of elaborate

d escr i p t i o n will reflect social closeness which also occurs in

the work of Givon (1900) and Haiman (1983). As Haiman (1983)

argues, "the social distance between interlocutors corresponds

to the length of the message, referential content being equal"

(p. 783). As I will attempt to show in Chapter 5, the greater

the social solidarity between interlocutors, the more reduced will be the forms used to introduce reports of direct speech

or quotations.

DramatizationA n o ther function of quotations suggested by Clark and

Gerrig (1990) is to allow the addressees to directly

experience the depicted event. As they point out, by

including direct speech in their reports, speakers "can do

with quotations anything that a professional actor wou l d do on

stage" (p. 776). Also by having the action, verbal or n o n ­

55verbal, demonstrated for them, the addressees can, in a sense,

"see for themselves" the source event. Similarly, Tannen

(1986) suggests that constructing dialogue (her terminology will be discussed below along with more d i s c ussion of the

d r a m a t i z i n g function of direct speech forms) is a w a y for

c onversati o n a l i s t s to move from being simply a narrator of an

event to d r amatizing an event. Constructing dialogue is a

means to involve the c o - c o n v ersationalists in a narrative.

W ierzb i c k a (1974) also emphasizes the "theatrical,

playful, imaginary character" (p. 272) of reported speech.

She writes:

The person who reports another's words by quoting them, temporarily assumes the role of that other person, 'plays his part', that is to say, imagines himself as the other person and for a moment behaves in accordance with the counterfactual assumption (p. 272).

So, the speaker of a quotative sentence pretends to be anotherperson (the person being quoted) as that person utters the

quotative sentence.

Clark and Gerrig (1990) do not suggest that quotations

are v e r b a t i m reproductions of an original event. They

specifically point out the unli k e l i h o o d of a v e r b a t i m

rendering of a speech event. They emphasize that theird e s c r i p t i o n of quotation as demonstration eliminates the need

for thinking of quotation in terms of being v e r b a t i m or not.

Only particular aspects of the referent are depicted; thespeaker, the one doing the demonstration, decides which

aspects are incidental and which are nonincidental and merit

56being marked. The issue of a verbatim reproduction seems

es p e c i a l l y irrelevant given that nonlinguistic actions can be

q u o t e d .

One other aspect of the dramatic use of direct speech

forms in reported discourse has been noted by Bauman (1977,

1986) in his analysis of spoken discourse as verbal art.

B auman points out that, on many occasions, the dramatic climax

of much storytelling is presented in the form of a direct

quotation. As I will argue in Chapter 4 , there appears to be

a quite elaborate structure of staging involved in verbal reports of past conversations which not only dramatizes the

events but also marks particular moments within those events

via direct speech forms.

C O N S T R U C T E D DIALOGUE

Tannen (1986, 1909) also denies that direct speech forms

o cc u r r i n g in conversation are direct quotes or direct reports

of prior speech events. One obvious basis for this claim

concerns the w e l l - d o cumented limitations of human memory (See

Hjelmquist, 1984; Hjelmquist and Gidlund, 1985 for research

c oncerni ng recall of conversation). Another reason for

a voiding the term "direct speech" is a result of the

r e c o n t e x tualization of reported speech. when reporting

speech, the reporting speaker appropriates the words

attrib u t e d to the reported speaker (Tannen 1989). A l o n g the

same line, Sternberg (1982) writes:

57What the traditional view overlooks is, first of all, the extent to which the very structure of report gives rise to contextual clash or friction between the reporting and the reported speech-events . For reported discourse yokes together two (or more) speech-events that are by nature removed from each other in time and place and state ofaffairs, in the identity of the participants, in theircharacters, outlooks, interpersonal relations . . . Owing to these inherent and often deliberately activated and patterned discrepancies, the frame not simply introduces and incorporates the displaced quote, but always colors and comments on it by way of implicit opposition, (p. 72)

The re contextualization of the quote, whether reported

v erb a t i m (however unlikely) or not prevents the repeated

utterance from being accurately labeled a direct quote,

Tannen prefers the term "constructed dialogue" toemphasize the role played by the reporting speaker. Often

what are presented in direct speech forms are utterances which

the reporting speaker clearly indicates were never spoken by

anyone. The reporting speaker clearly constructs the

utterances for dramatic purposes. Tannen (1989) offersseveral examples of such constructed dialogue (pp. 110-119).

The dialogue may be clearly marked as something that was not

said ("You can't say, ". . . " (p. 110), as an example of a

general phenomenon, as an utterance attributed to several

speakers, as a representation of thought attributed to the

reporting speaker or to others, or as an utterance attributed

to a nonhuman speaker. Dialogue attributed to a character in

a narrative may also be constructed by a listener of the

narrative who clearly cannot be directly reporting a prior

speech event. In Chapter 4, I will present examples from my

data which illustrate that much of what appears in direct

58speech forms was clearly never spoken by anyone. I will attempt to show that speakers construct dialogue within reported discourse in conversation just as a novelist can construct dialogue for fictional characters.

SPEAKER ROLESBublitz (1988) approaches conversation analysis by

describing the way participants in friendly everyday conversation "behave towards each other when establishing and maintaining a continuous and smooth flow of conversation" (p. 1). He suggests that the "essential characteristic"(p. 264) of everyday conversation is the endeavor for "agreement, consent, conformance and endorsement" in the areas of social intercourse and level of content (p. 264). The topical behavior of the speakers leads Bublitz to define major speaker roles in the following manner:

Primary speaker - "MAKES A MAJOR SPEAKING CONTRIBUTION TO THE TOPIC, typically by performing speech acts such as TELLING, REPORTING, ARGUING etc. and who typically performs the topical actions such as INTODUCING A TOPIC, CLOSING A TOPIC etc.Secondary speaker - "MAKES A MINOR SPEAKER CONTRIBUTION TO THE TOPIC, typically by performing speech acts such as AGREEING, SUPPORTING, APPROVING, DOUBTING, INQUIRING etc., thus STATING A POSITION and MANIFESTING AN

59ATTITUDE, and who typically refrains from performing topical actions", (p. 161)

The preferred activity of the secondary speaker is to support the primary speaker. Bublitz lists several categories of support including: readopting or repeating, evaluating ordeclaring one's attitude, and completing, supplementing, or paraphrasing. Although Bublitz's analysis doesn't include mention of direct speech forms, I will use the categories of completions, supplements, and paraphrases in a later chapter to organize my data. Here, I will present examples offered by Bublitz to illustrate the categories.

A secondary speaker may show support for the primary speaker by completing an utterance begun by the primary speaker. The following extract is an example:

C you didn't have capital gains but of course you did have [uh]:.

a death du*ties*C *death* du#ties#a *m#(Bublitz, 1988, p. 238)

The secondary speaker anticipates what will be said and "'takes the words out of the primary speaker's mouth'" (p. 239). The effect is two speakers making one speaker contribution. The secondary speaker shows support by offering words, the form of which is somewhat determined by what was begun by the primary speaker.

60Another category of support is supplementing, which

involves coordinate expressions. The following is an example: C <. . . > we sort of saw each other once or twice to

sort of . clear the air ( - laughs) and tie up the loose ends

b *( - giggles) - divide the records ( — . giggles)*C *and the dictionaries .*<...>(Bublitz, 1988, p. 242)

Here b shows support for C by supplementing C's utterance, by adding a line which could have been said by C. The coordinate nature of the supplement allows the primary speaker to "express or, at least, suggest (and pretend) that not only both their (coordinated) contributions, but also their assumptions, assessments and attitudes run parallel" (p. 243) .

Another category of support is paraphrasing. By paraphrasing the primary speaker, the secondary speaker reflects the point of view of the primary speaker. Again, the contribution made by the secondary speaker might have been made by the primary speaker. The following is an example:

D funny thing is that when Elsie's reminiscing abouther . teenage . c h i l d h o o d --- she must have beensuch a pain in the neck to her mum and vice versa

c oh we were all hell(Bublitz, 1988, p. 245)

61These three categories, as well as others, are a means of

support, the preferred activity of a secondary speaker. Bublitz offers an explanation for the seldom occurrence of a nonsupportive contribution made by the secondary speaker. To not support is an action which, like other dispreferred actions, requires explanation and justification which requires "a great deal of (verbal) energy which normally cannot be mustered from the position of the secondary speaker role" (p. 258) . When a primary speaker is presented with a response by the secondary speaker which is dispreferred, the primary speaker usually allows the secondary speaker to take the primary speaker rc 1 e to explain and justify the secondary speaker's action.

In Chapter 5, I will make use of the terms "primary speaker" and "secondary speaker" while discussing the supportive and accommodating behavior of the participants. I will also note that, in some cases, this separation of speaker roles into primary and secondary is not as clear-cut as it at first seems.

As in any study of conversation, this investigation faced some problems with regard to the nature of the data. As many conversation analysts have observed, the choice of spoken data for analysis, the transcribed record of that data, and decisions about the category assignment of various forms all raise problematic issues that have a bearing on the way the actual conversation is represented. In the following chapter,

62I will explore some of these issues and make clear how decisions regarding certain problematic forms were arrived at.

DESCRIPTION OF DATA

INTRODUCTION

in this chapter I would like to describe the manner in

which the data was collected, the participants involved in the

conversations, and my transcription conventions I will also

explore some of the specific problems I encountered when

transcribing constructed dialogue represented with direct

speech forms. In doing so, I will give some idea of the type

of conve rsational data that will be analyzed in the following

c h a p t e r s .

COLLECTION OF THE DATA

Although there is little consensus as to the type of data which is most suitable for conversation analysis, the

(d i s )advantages of each type are largely agreed upon. For

example, conversations taken from literary material will

likely be more compressed and more characterized by conflict

than routine conversations (McLaughlin, 1984). Because of

differences in form and content from natural conversations,

data from literary materials, such as those appearing in

Chapter 1, are, by and large, considered unsuitable for the

d escr i p t i o n of conversational structure.

Hypothetical examples of conversation, examples conjured

up by the analyst, are another data type used by those making

claims about the nature of conversation including Grice (1975)

63

64and Searle (1975). However, their success rests largely on

the "simplicity and broad applicability" of their constructs

w h ich have little to do with their hypothetical examples

(McLaughlin, 19B4, p. 238). Researchers who base their

analyses on the facts of their own intuition run the risk of

having in their minds facts different from those of other

language users.

To solve the problem of possible idiosyncratic

intuitions, a researcher may elicit desired data from a pool

of subjects. For example, a researcher may ask the subjects

to recall a particular interaction or to role play a

particular event. While the type of data elicited by this

m ethod is probably more natural than that found in literary

conversations, and while this method prevents the researchers

from having to rely on their own experience, other problems

arise. One problem with elicited data is the inclination for

subjects to try to make themselves look good. For example,

subjects may tend to use more formal English if they know that

their speech is being paid particular attention (cf. Labov,

1972). To solve the problems which accompany the other data

types, researchers can simply tape-record natural

conversations. The data on which my analysis is based is from

such conversations. To characterize natural conversation,

Stubbs (1983) uses the terms "spontaneous," "unplanned" and

"casual" as opposed to "artificial," "contrived," "invented"

and "hypothetical" (p. 33). This data type is not without its

65own drawbacks, including extraneous noise, self-conscious

speakers, and f,p e r f o r m i n g " speakers. Natural conversations

may be gathered in either natural or controlled settings. I

will now b r iefly describe the sessions during which data was

gathered for this study.

My data was collected on four different occasions.

During the first recording, four speakers, Kim, Sara, Maya and

myself (appearing in the data as Toni), participated in the

conversation. On the following three occasions, for reasons

to be explained, only Sara and Maya participated.

The first recording was made at a dinner party being held

to celebrate Kim's 21st birthday. My intention was to record

a natural conversation in a natural setting. The tape-

recorder was placed unobtrusively on a chair in a corner about

two feet away from the table. I had been granted the

partipants' permission to record the dinner conversation;

however, Sara did not realize that the tape-recorder was on

until it switched off after completing one side of the tape.

As the quality of the recording shows, much distr a c t i n g

activity (from a transcriber's point of view) was occurring

s i m u l t a n e o u s l y with the conver s a t i o n . A television movie

blares in the background, eating noises abound, and chairs

scrape across the floor as we move from the table to the

kitchen to the table again. After listening to the recording

of this conversation, I decided to focus on these speakers'

use of constructed dialogue since it occurred in abundance in

66their talk. Because Sara and Maya did the most talking on the first tape and because Kira was less available for taping, the second recording involved only Sara and Maya. (I came into the room where they were talking and spoke to them a couple of times but my speech is not included in the data transcribed from this session.) The recording was made at my apartment. Sara came to the apartment, at which Maya also lived, for the express purpose of being recorded. However, Sara frequented our apartment in the evening after work to catch up on the news with Maya, so the occasion was not unusual. Neither speaker was aware that I was examining constructed dialogue as it appeared in their speech.

Because the quality of the second recording was worse than that of the f irst (large segments are unintelligible) , the next two recordings were made on the university campus in a sound-proof room designed for recording. I made a choice to increase the artificiality of the setting in exchange for an increase in the quality of the recording. It is worth mentioning again that the speakers habitually got together to talk and, as is apparent from the data collected, they do not appear to feel uncomfortable in the recording room. Although a few references are made to the setting - playing with and blowing into the microphone, talking about a dentist chair seen in a neighboring room, complaining about not being able to smoke, and praising the carpet - the speakers appear to

67become involved in their conversation and less aware of their surroundings.

During these last two sessions, I supplied the participants with a list of topics. The topics which were designed to elicit reports of speech events included: moviesI've seen recently, recent arguments I've had (or wish I'd had), job interviews, telephone conversations, lies I've told recently, and recent interactions with co-workers, classmates, bosses, or teachers. Maya and Sara were told that the topics were intended to elicit talk that would be used as examples of natural American English to foreign students on campus. They, however, suspected that I was particularly interested in their talk. The speakers occasionally examined the listed topics, but, by and large, they spoke on topics that were relevant to them at the time, a notion which is supported by the extracts in the Appendix.

Though the settings did become increasingly more artificial, I do not believe that the artificiality of the conversation rose to the same degree. Nor do I believe, based on my knowledge of their speaking behavior in other settings, that the speakers felt like they were performing. I believe that the data itself shows that the speakers were having typical conversations.

68THE PARTICIPANTS

The speakers appearing in the transcripts are four American women. Sara, 20, is from Mississippi; Kim, 21, is from Connecticut; Maya, 23, is from Oklahoma; Toni, 27, is from Illinois. Kim and Toni are college students, Sara has a day job, and Maya is an on-again off-again college student. Kim and Sara have known each other the longest. They met when they were both freshmen living in the dorm. Later, after Sara left school, they began sharing an apartment and are best friends. Maya met Sara and Kim about nine months before the first recording. She became friends with both of them and lived in their apartment for a short time. I met Maya about two months prior to the first recording and knew Sara and Kim largely through her (though I had met Sara previously through another mutual friend) . Maya and I had been sharing our apartment for about one month.

TRANSCRIPTION CONVENTIONSA11 transcriptions are necessarily selective in the

features of the interaction they attempt to capture (Atkinson & Heritage, 1984). It would be impossible to represent all facets of a conversation with a written transcription. Each transcription reflects to some degree the interests of its analyst. Because my chief interest in the analysis of my data was the form and function of constructed dialogue, I took special pains to transcribe the features which came into play

69at these sites. For example, I clearly mark direct speech forms by placing a colon before them and enclosing them with quotations marks. Also, if the speaker modifies her speech quality to utter the words appearing in direct speech forms, the voice quality is indicated in parentheses.

By the same token, because my chief interests did not lie elsewhere, I ignored some features of the conversation which another transcriber with another set of interests would have undoubtedly included. For example, I do not indicate pause lengths because I do not think my analysis would be especially enhanced by a consideration of them. I also do not indicate laughter though not because I think that it is a trivial feature of these conversations. I do not indicate laughter largely because of its pervasiveness. The speakers are clearly having a good time during most of the conversations (though the transcripts will show that serious and, perhaps, painful topics are also covered). Being aware of the inherent bias of this transcript as well as any other, take note that the following notations are used.

: Precedes direct speech forms." Enclose direct speech forms.0 Indicates that the constructed dialogue in direct

speech forms are not attributed to a speaker.(An example from the data may help to illustrate the notation used to transcribe direct speech forms:

aaa

CAP

/

70Mom goes: "Ah see anyone you know there?" 0: "Nothank God")Indicates rising intonation.Repeated letters indicate that a sound was drawn out.Capital letters which are not turn-initial or constructed utterance-initial indicate an increase in volume.Indicates overlapped speech.Cashes are used to indicate slight breaks. They are also intended to help the reader follow the transcript.Indicate that no pause occurred between change in speakers. The sign is also used to mark a single turn when that turn is necessarily broken on the page of transcript because of the representation of overlapped talk.Underlining is used to draw attention during the analysis of some feature of the data (e.g. she's 1 ike: "WeiI ...)In parentheses I indicate two types of features of the interaction. Parentheses may enclose highly relevant non-speaking activity (e.g. a hand gesture). Parentheses may also enclose voice quality (e.g. nasal, falsetto).

VOICE QUALITYIf a speaker marks a shift away from the speaker's voice

as narrator with a shift in voice quality, the shift is noted in parentheses. For example, if Sara shifts from her normal voice quality (modal voice) to a falsetto voice quality, the technical notation ffalsettol will appear before the direct speech forms. The terms for the types of voice quality are taken from Laver (1980, pp. 109-135). I will give a brief description of each of the types of voice quality that are included in the data.falsetto - fundamental frequency tends to be considerably

higher than in one's normal voice resulting in a higher pitch

whisper - voicelessness resulting in hushed soundscreaky voice - low fundamental frequency and "an effect of

continual, separate taps in rapid sequence" (Laver, 1980, p. 124).

harsh voice - boosting some of the features of modal voice,resulting in a rough or strident auditoryeffect

breathy voice- inefficient vibration of vocal folds; sighingeffect

nasal voice - produced with airflow through the nasal cavity

72PROBLEMATIC ISSUES DURING THE T R A NSCRIPTION

Some subjective decisions concerning the transcription of

the data surrounding and including constructed dialogue had to

be made. I will briefly discuss some of the problems

e n c ount ered during the transcription. At the same time, I

will give some idea of the type of data that I gathered and a n a l y z e d .

I chose to put beginning and end quotes around the constructed dialogue. Usually deciding when the dialogue

began and ended was not difficult. For example, in the

following extract during Sara's di s c u s s i o n of a movie, she

uses direct speech forms which she attributes to a character

in the movie f h e ).

[1] Sara: It was so - it was stupid - I mean he's like:

"I gotta get rid of her" and then he felt bad

about it and then he found the lord

The referent of I switches from being the speaker, Sara, to

the character who utters the constructed line. The referent

of hj» becomes the referent of i within the quotes and then

becomes the referent of lie again.

Even without switches in referents as in extract [ 1 J ,

most of the dialogue is clearly marked with pauses, voice

quality modifications, or contextual cues. However, two

discourse markers, you know and r e a l l y . were especially

73problematic when transcribing the conversation. I will briefly discuss the nature of the problems associated with each of these discourse markers and present examples illustrating the transcription decisions I made. The examples will also be a sampling of the type of data to be presented in the next two chapters.

You knowAs discussed in Chapter 2, discourse markers can be

described as "sequentially dependent elements which bracket units of talk" (Schiffrin, 1987, p. 31) or indicators of the conversants' covert thinking (Schourup, 1982) or as expressions which are "used to signal the relation of an utterance to the immediate context" (Redeker, 1990, p. 372). The evincive meaning which Schourup posits for vou know is that the speaker who utters you know expects no significant discrepancy between what is in the speaker's head and the current listener's head with respect to what is being said (p. 74) . However, it is uttered in those cases in which the speaker is uncertain about whether the listener is following what the speaker is trying to say. The speaker expects that the listener would understand what is in the speaker's head, but the speaker isn't sure that she is making herself clear in the current interaction. As one might expect, vou know often occurs at hesitation and repair sites, where the speaker is obviously having problems generating the message to be

74understood. The following example from Schourup illustrates

the marker:

I 2] They have nice dresses in there. They mav not be nice -

I you know] like - so nice but they have nice dresses,

(Schourup, 1982, p. 88).

Apparently, the speaker is trying to express the idea that the dresses in question are "nice enough." The speaker appears to

be attempting to make sure that the addressee understands that

the speaker does not think the dresses are extremely nice but

just nice. By using you k n o w , the speaker calls attention to

the fact that s/he is hoping that the addressee follows her

m e a n i n g .The problem with you know arose in the transcription

process when the discourse marker occurred at sites involving

direct speech forms where there is the presence of two voices,

those of the current speaker and the reported speaker in the constructed situation. The question is - To which speaker

should you know be attributed? Is it that the current speaker

wants to make sure that her addressee is following her, or is

it that the current speaker is representing the constructed

speaker as wanting to make sure that hi s/her addressee is

following him/her? I'll first show an example from my data

for which the problem was solved by appealing to the

intonational pattern of the utterance. I'll transcribe the

75extract in two different ways to illustrate the available transcription choices. In the following extract, Maya is reporting how she felt on a dance floor of a bar in Houston (away from her usual hangout).

[3a] Maya: I was like: "Ok - well - I need to bouncecause I'm in Houston cause vou know you want to fit in"

[3b] Maya: I was like: "Ok - well - I need to bouncecause I'm in Houston" cause - vou know you want to fit in

By transcribing the extract as in [3a], one must assume that Maya was addressing herself when saying vou know because the context makes it clear that the direct speech forms represent thought rather than speech. As mentioned in Chapter 2, be 1 ike often signals that thought, not speech, is being represented. By transcribing the extract as in [3b], one mustassume that Maya is addressing her current interlocutors. Inthis example, vou know is said by Maya with falling intonation which indicates to me as a listener that she is addressing her current interlocutors, not the representation of herself within the constructed situation. The entire clause cause vou know vou want to fit in appears to be an appeal to her addressees to understand why she felt compelled to dance a particular way. If vou know were said with rising intonation,

76that would indicate to me that she is trying to convey that she was reminding herself why she felt it necessary to bounce instead of shuffle on the dance floor. So because of the intonational patterns of the utterance, I chose the [b] transcription. With this transcription, vou know, which is attributed to Maya as the current speaker, allows the extract to read as Maya seeking understanding from her current addressees (those of us at the dinner party).

When vou know occurs after a quotative site (e.g. she's like. he said), deciding to whom to attribute the discourse marker was more difficult. The decision at this site again involves whether to attribute vou know to the current speaker or the speaker in the constructed situation. One possibility was to consider vou know to be an utterance-initial particle (Bauman, 1986; Redeker, 1990; Schourup, 1982) of the same type as, for example, wel1. Because of its several utterance- initial uses (with quotations, responses to questions, exclamations, topic-shifts) well appears to "contextualize the quotation with respect to the quoted speaker's situation of utterance" (Schourup, 1982, p. 52). In the following example from my data, wel 1 is attributed to each of the reported speakers.

[4] Maya: Yeah she said: "Well at least she wasn'tgoodlooking" and I's like: "Well are you sureyou prefer that to him fucking someone he

77knows?" and she's: "Well I don't know - wellat least she's not goodlooking"

Because of its numerous utterance-initial uses, a speaker may use well to signal the beginning of an utterance that is attributable to a speaker in the constructed situation.

Is vou know another means that the current speaker has available to contextualize the constructed utterance? Does vou know situate the utterance in the constructed world by conveying that the speaker of the constructed utterance is making sure that his/her addressee is following her? An alternative analysis of the marker is provided by Redeker (1990) who considers you know to be a "comment clause" which is "clearly the current speaker's own addition" (p. 374). In this case, vou know would be excluded from the constructed utterance. The two transcription options are presented below. In both of the pairs of examples, [a] shows vou know attributed to the reporting speaker and (b] to the reported speaker.

[5a] Sara: She's like vou know: "I even heard what yousaid about my socks"

[5b] Sara: She's like: "You know - I even heard what yousaid about my socks"

78[6a] Maya: She said vou know: "I only smoke three

cigarettes a day now" you know just out of the blue

[6b] Maya: She said: "You know I only smoke threecigarettes a day now" vou know just out of the blue

In these extracts, intonational patterns did not offer clues to how the data should be transcribed. If the intonational pattern had been rising, my tendency would have been to include vou know as part of the constructed utterance. Such intonation was not present here, however. With somereservation, I decided to transcribe the turns as in the [a] options above, that is, attributing vou know to the current speaker. After listening to segments of the recording several times, I decided that vou know is serving, more than likely, as an appeal made by the current speaker to her addressee. So, in most cases in which vou know occurs in the environment of direct speech forms, I excluded the marker from the constructed utterance, attributing it to the current speaker. I included vou know as part of the constructed utterance only when it is uttered with rising intonation. So while cautioning the reader that this attribution of the discourse marker isn't necessarily that which was intended by the speaker, I can offer that this attribution was made consistently.

79

R e a l l y

A discourse marker which has received little attention is

r e a l l y . Really is usually described as being an intensifier

(Greenbaum, 1969), The utterance - this is really good -

illustrates the use of really being used as an intensifier, in

this case, to intensify g o o d . Gre e n b a u m (1969) also discusses

the d i s junctive (lacking integration within the clause) use of

really which works to make "explicit the speaker's view that

the statement being made is true" (p. 144). The utterance -

really this is good - illustrates the d i s junctive use of

r e a l l y . With really the speaker is underscoring the truth of

this is g o o d . Stenstrom (19B6) suggests that this

traditional view of really either as an intensifier or as a

reflection of the speaker's view toward the entire statement

misses several of its uses, especially conversational uses.

Stenstrom proposes three speech-specific uses of r e a l l y :

as a "re-opener," as a "continuer" and as a "planner" (p.

150). As a "re-opener," the user of really reacts to an

informative statement or reacts to the response to a question.

Spoken with a falling-rising or rising tone, really would

signal surprise and would call for a confirmation of the truth

of the message. The following extract is an example from my

data of really used as a re-opener:

[7] Sara: A p p a r e n t l y Mark is like: "Man you need to

trash h i m ”

eoMaya: R e a l l y ? I didn't hear that part

Sara: Well that's what Don was tellin Alan last

night: "You need to trash him . . . "

in Sara's second turn she responds to Maya's q u e stioning

really? by reporting the source of her news.

As a "planner," really serves to let the hearer know that

"the real message is still to come" {Stenstrom, 1906, p. 162).

It frequently co-occurs with such elements as repetitions,

reformulations, and new starts. The following extract is an

example of really functioning as what Stenstrom calls a

" p l a n n e r ."

[0] Maya: I started bouncin around and I really - I felt

several pieces of former meals . .

Really appears to act as a "'dangling' intensifier" (p. 162), intensifying the anticipated report of feeling sick.

As a "continuer," really serves to let the other speaker

know that the user of really is listening and that the other

speaker should continue. Really has the same use as uh h u h ,

for example, at this site. In the following extract, really

in both instances appears to be functioning as a "continuer."

(9] Sara: Stands there and twitches and uh he was like:

{creaky voice) "I hate him"

81Maya: Oh reallySara: I was like: "Gee I think he's really cute"

Alan was like: (creaky voice) "Gross /that's/grotesque=

Maya: /r e a l l x /Sara: = - you would" - 0: "Yes I would"

Maya does not appear to be asking Sara for confirmation of the truth of her report {if she is, she doesn't receive it) but simply showing interest in what Sara is saying.

Even this expanded description of the functions of really in conversation omits one use of really which appears frequently in my data and which had to be taken into consideration while I was transcribing the data in order to decide what should go within sets of quotation marks. This use of real lv seems to be similar to its function as a reflection of the speaker's view towards an entire utterance. Greenbaum (1969) suggests that the speaker uses it to make explicit that s/he believes that the statement being made by him/her is true. In this data, however, the speaker appears to use real lv to make explicit that she believes that the statement which has just been uttered by the previous speaker is true. The speaker appears to use really to show support of her co-conversationalist. The following extract illustrates really being used in utterance initial position. Maya and Sara are making disparaging remarks about an acquaintance who

82has complained about his inability to meet people in Baton Rouge.

[10) Maya: What do you expect when you're balding andwearing polyester and working at a taxi company

Sara: Really and wearing little ankle boots kindath ings

With really Sara seems to affirm Maya's description of the character being discussed. She shows her agreement with Maya and then supplements the description of the unpopular character which is in keeping with the negative tone begun by Maya.

Reallv also makes agreement explicit in the following extract. Sara and Maya are discussing in jest the possibility of Sara stealing the carpet from the room in which they are being recorded.

[11] Sara: I could take the carpet out of this room andput it into my room at my house

Maya: Hey yeah I'm sure they won't noticeSara: Really I'll just fold it up and tuck it under

my shirt

83A g ain Sara shows her agreement with Maya's ironic statement

that the theft of the car pet will not be noticed and then elaborates on how the theft could go unobserved.

In extracts [10] and [11], really appears to function in

the same way that yeah can. For example, in the following

extract, yeah appears to do the same work that really does in

the previous examples. Maya and Sara are talking about the

inevitability of lying.

[12] Sara: -No cuz it just happens

Maya: Yeah you just kinda go: "Whoops"

In extract [12], with yeah Maya indicates her agreement with Sara's statement about lying and then dramatizes how easily and u n e x p e c t e d l y a lie can be told. Real ly and yeah appear to

be interchangeable at these sites.

Really appears to be functioning similarly when it occurs

near zero-quotative sites (those sites, marked by 0, where

direct speech forms have neither an introducing verb (e.g.

s a y s ) nor an attributed speaker). At such sites, I had to

consider if it was possible to interpret really as being said

by the reported speaker. That is, is there a m b iguity

concerning the attribution of really as there is with you

k n o w 7 I decided that really should not be interpreted and

transcribed as being spoken by the reported speaker; really is

always said in the voice of the reporting speaker (Maya or

84Sara) at these sites. An example of really occurring near direct speech forms follows. Sara has just told Maya that a few nights earlier she nearly fell in a bar. Maya tells her that she should have pretended to do it on purpose.

[13] Maya:

Sara: Maya:

Sara: Maya: Sara:

Maya:

Save face if you can't save your ass - mightas wellRe a l l yHit the ground - wipe yourself off and look at everybody: "That's exactly how I wanted thatto look"0: "Now that I have your attention"Reallv 0: "Now that I have your attention"0: "I'd like to sell you some EncyclopediaBrittanicas"0: "Have you ever thought about owning yourown carpet cleaning unit?"

The first instance of really in Sara's first turn appears to be operating both as a 'continuer' and as a marker of support for what Maya has said. with the second instance of really. Maya shows her agreement with (perhaps approval of) Sara's continuance of the constructed dialogue begun by Maya. Maya's support of Sara's contribution to the imagined dialogue is further reinforced by her repetition of Sara's constructed line. There seems to be no question whatsoever whether to

85include really as part of the direct speech forms. Neither the functions mentioned by Greenbaum and Stenstrom nor the supportive function which I've suggested would motivate the placement of reallv within the quotation marks, it is not the reported speaker of the lines of constructed dialogue who is saying really, but rather Maya who is saying it to show her support of Sara for her part in their joint construction of dialogue.

Another example follows in which really also appears to mark support of the preceding speaker's contribution to the construction of dialogue. The speakers are discussing the age of an acquaintance's girlfriend. Sara reports a conversation in which she was told the age and then both she and Mayaconstruct a response to the information.

[14] Sara: . . . H e ' s like: "She just turned eighteen"0: "Oh boy"

Maya: 0: "Fuckin A - you got some legal stuff now -huh Mike?"

Sara: Real lv uh 0: "So uh you're not datin thejailbait anymore I see"

Reallv again appears to mark Sara's support for the directionin which Maya has taken the constructed dialogue (orattitude). She follows up her marker of support with aparaphrase of Maya's previous construction.

86In the next extract, really also appears to show support

for the previous speaker's constructed line. In extract [15], Maya is describing her mood when she is awakened on particular mornings.

[15] Maya:

Sara: Maya:

Sara:

. . . 0: "Good morning Maya" (harsh voice)0: "Fuck you"Reallv (harsh voice) 0: "Eat me and die" Really (harsh voice) 0: "I wish you wouldfall over="=(harsh voice) 0: "Heretic" really "I wishyou would fall down the steps"

As in the previous examples, following really is a continuance of the constructed dialogue. In this extract, the speakers supplement what has been previously said. It should be noted that as mentioned in Chapter 2, Bublitz (1998) suggests that repetitions, paraphrases, and supplements are indicative of supportive behavior. So, at these sites where really occurs near direct speech forms, I made the decision to exclude reallv from the direct speech forms, attributing the marker to the reporting rather than the reported speaker. Really is a part of the interaction taking place between Maya and Sara during the taped conversation and not part of the constructed interaction being reported.

87At these sites involving direct speech forms, yeah also

seems to be interchangeable with really. Notice thesimilarity of the following extract to the ones that have come before. Maya and Sara are constructing a response to Sara's mother which had begun with a reassurance that the bar that Sara frequents is an acceptable place. However, where we enter the conversation in extract [16], the tone of the response changes.

[16] Maya: 0: "Everybody shares a stool - every personon earth"

Sara: 0: "And sit on each other' s laps and slidetheir hands between each other's legs"=

Maya: =0: "And go: 'Whoo whoo whoo'"Sara: Yeah 0: "Whooga whooga whocga"

As in extract [14] involving reallv. Sara first shows support for Maya's previous construction with veah and then constructs a paraphrase of that construction. Again, veah appears to be properly transcribed by attributing it to Sara as an element of her interaction with Maya, rather than to the imaginary persons going whooaa whooga whooga.

88NATURE OF THE CONVERSATIONALISTS INTERACTION

As may have been noticed from the data extracts in the previous sections, the speakers appear to identify with one another to a great extent. This identification is achieved with the use of what Tannen calls 'involvement strategies' (1984, 1989). Involvement strategies are related to Brown and Levinson's (1988) notion of positive face wants, those needs associated with being appreciated and feeling accepted as part of a community. These needs must be balanced with the needs of an individual to maintain a separate identity. Tannen uses the term 'considerateness' to describe the conversational behavior with which a conversationalist shows respect for the co-conversationalist's needs as an individual.

Involvement strategies include talking about personal topics, shifting topics abruptly, telling stories, and shifting voice quality or amplitude. These and two additional strategies - repetition and dialogue (discussed in detail by Tannen (1989)) - are frequently used by these speakers toachieve involvement.

Repetition is a "resource by which conversationalists together create a discourse, a relationship, and a world" (p. 97) . Tannen suggests several functions of repetition, including participation, humor (achieved with a slight variation of the original), and appreciation (savoring a line). The following extract illustrates the interpersonal

89involvement achieved with repetition. The joint construction of imaginary dialogue also adds to the involvement.

[17] Sara: Maya:

Sara: Maya: Sara:

Maya:

Sara: Maya: Sara: Maya: Sara:

Kim said that he prayed every nightUh-hm prayed for peace well it's a good lineanywayOh really/0: "I prayed about you every night"//0: "I prayed about you"/ 0: "HeyI'll talk to you"0: "Put a ring on me hey oooh I'm yours - noproblem"□: "Now that you found the lord"0: "Now that you found the lord"0: "What are we waiting for?"0: "And the power of prayer"0: "The power of prayer"

The joint construction of this imaginary response to an estranged boyfriend's admission that he prayed for a reunion clearly demonstrates the rapport which can be achieved with repetition and constructed dialogue. However, the involvement they achieve with one another does not appear to be at the expense of their needs as individuals. First, these needs are met in part by their joint effort to separate themselves from other members of their social circle (they jointly ridicule

90most members as in extract [17]). Much of their interaction, too, has as an underlying theme their separateness from society at large. The following extract may illustrate this point as well as illustrate the use of several involvement strategies. First, Maya uses a narrative to illustrate her dread of stinging caterpillars. Second, the topic is of a personal nature (Maya says prior to this extract that she has been having nightmares about them). Third, one means that she uses to dramatize her story is direct speech forms which are representative of her thought. This representation of thought, which contains repetition, is further marked by a shift in voice quality.

[18] Maya: I was sitting at the bus stop the other dayand I purposely don't sit under the little hut because they're up in there you know so I sat out in the sun on the curb so I can see you know - I'm on this island of cement and I can see anything dark crawling and this woman was sitting across from me and she kept looking at me real fucked up so 1 was like developing a hate for her even though I don't know her and I see this caterpillar drop behind her and start like squiggling its way up to her and I'm just like: (whispering) MShould I tellher or should I not? Should I tell her?" I

91sat there for like five minutes and watched itget up to her shoe and I decided I can't tellher - I gotta see what happens and I think iflike you do something mean to somebody likethat it'll come back on you so I was sure I'llget covered in - I was like waiting cause Isaw it crawl by her shoe - you know just kindainch its way out of my view and I was like: "Oh shit - it's going in her sock - Ahhhh!" - but then it like inches out the other side youknow - didn't touch her at all -

I would draw attention to this woman was looking at me real fucked up so I was like developing a hate for her eventhough I don't know her. The fact that this statement can gowithout elaboration suggests, first of all, that Sara knowswhat she means, and, second, that what she means is thatpersons 1 ike her (and Sara) often get looked at real fuckedu p . The implication i s that they look and act different fromother people, represented here by this woman. It appears thatthey satisfy their needs to be both a part of a group and aseparate individual by emphasizing their separateness from others.

I would suggest that their separate identities are also retained in spite of their highly involved interaction by the very nature of this involvement. For example, although Maya's

92p a r ticipation is perhaps most characterized by identification

with her c o - c o n v e r s a t i o n a l i s t (s ) , her separate identity is in

no way hidden or put aside. Upon hearing the taped-recordings

or reading the transcripts, one cannot deny that her voice as

a separate individual not only is heard but heard loudly.

SUMMARYIn this chapter we have seen some samples of the data,

aspects of which will be analyzed in the following two

chapters. I also have mentioned some of the problematic

issues encountered during the process of transcribing the data

surrounding and included within the constructed dialogue. As m e ntioned during the description of the t r a nscription

conventions that I followed, a 0 is used to mark that an

utterance represented with direct speech forms has no

attributed speaker or quotative. An in-depth analysis of the

functions which appear to be performed with this "zero-

quotative" will be presented in Chapter 5.

BE LIKE

INTRODUCTIONHaving established some conventions for the

representation of constructed dialogue forms in conversation,

I w o uld now like to describe, in some detail, some functional

aspects of both constructed dialogue and the introductory

quotatives which accompany it. I propose that speakers who frequently construct dialogue from either past or hypothetical

speech events have an elaborate way of doing so. I also

suggest that the speakers' decision to represent speech in

either direct or indirect forms and the speakers' choice of

quotative are meaningful. I do not claim that they are

c o nsciously deciding to represent speech events in direct or indirect speech or that they are consciously deciding to use

a particular quotative (or to not use a quotative), but I do suggest that the choices made have a function. The quotative

be l i k e , in particular, will be examined closely.

C O N S T R U C T E D DIALOGUE

As I noted in Chapter 2, I will borrow Tannen's (1986)

term "constructed dialogue" to capture the fact that a

particular type of conversational report can include fragments

of speech which have all the formal markings of direct, or

quoted, speech, but which were (in all likelihood) not

actually uttered by the person(s) they are attributed to. In

93

94Chapter 2, I listed types of examples offered by Tannen (1986, 1989) to argue that utterances presented in direct speech forms are clearly marked as never having been spoken by anyone. For example, the dialogue may be clearly marked as something that was not said, as an example of a general phenomenon, as an utterance attributed to several speakers, as a representation of thought, as a construction by a listener, or as an utterance attributed to a nonhuman speaker. I would now like to present examples from my data which clearly illustrate that the dialogue presented in direct speech forms is indeed constructed rather than reported verbatim from a previous conversation.

The first examples illustrate dialogue which is constructed to represent something that was not said. In extract [1], the speaker is explaining that because she cannot tell her parents that she drinks at bars, she is left with a explanation that she cannot offer because it lacks credibility.

[1) Sara: What do you tell them? "Well I was justsitting in this bar and this band was playing and I'm just sitting there"

Because the utterance represents something that Sara cannot say, the utterance must be constructed rather than reported.

95Extract [2] also is an example of a speaker representing

in direct speech forms something that clearly wasn't said.

[2] Sara: I always wanted to ask him: "So what happenedto your fuck?"

Note that vour does not have as its referent Maya, the person to whom Sara is talking in the current (reporting) situation but to the referent of him. Sara indicates that the constructed utterance is not a question she has asked but only one that she would like to ask. The direct speech forms are not to be taken as reported speech but as constructed dialogue.

In extract [3], both speakers construct dialogue for a character which the first speaker marks as being constructed by asking her interlocutors to "imagine" Jimmy in bed.

[3) Maya: Jimmy is such a granny - can you imagine himin bed - (falsetto) 0: "Let's put some nicepaper towels down"

Sara: (falsetto) 0: "Get a bottle of Chloraseptic"Maya: (falsetto) 0: "Could you get that 409 - could

you kinda swab the tip of your penis before I put it in my mouth?"

96Again note that the deictic features of direct speech are preserved, with the reference of vou and my necessarily interpreted in terms of the imaginary conversation. Maya and Sara are in no way indicating that they have overheard Jimmy's bedroom talk and are now reporting it. Rather than reporting a past speech event, the speakers create a caricature of a person they both know by constructing dialogue attributed to him.

The following extract again illustrates that the speaker does not intend to be interpreted as directly reporting speech. In extract [4], Maya attributes words to a character who is trying to explain to his girlfriend why he cheated on her.

[4] Maya: he's like: "I'm sorry I just blah blah blah"

Again, the referent of i must be interpreted, not in terms of the current interaction between Maya and Sara, but in terms of the constructed situation involving the boyfriend and girlfriend. Of course, Maya is not intending the listeners of her narrative to believe that the boyfriend actually said blah blah blah. Instead, Maya sums up her attitude towards the type of excuses he might have presented by not giving them the weight of being actually spoken by her. Each of the extracts[1] through [4] has clear indications that the speaker does not intend the dialogue to be interpreted as direct reports of

97past speech events even though the dialogue is represented with direct speech forms.

Further support for the argument that dialogue may be more accurately described as constructed rather than directly reported is that the dialogue may be offered as an instantiation of a repeated occurrence. In the following example, Maya is complaining about a character's propensity to assume she knows everything about everything.

[5] Maya: you know how she automatically knows all thisstuff about every category? Anything you can bring up she knows a whole lot about it even though she doesn't know what she's talking about she '11 say: (falsetto) "Oh well itseems to me it would be like this"

Maya appears to be representing a line of dialogue as a line of which she has heard some variation repeatedly. Also, the vague referents it and this signal that the utterance is not a report but a construction of a type of utterance. Note that the referent of me should not be interpreted as the current speaker (Maya) but as the character in the constructed situation.

Another indicator that utterances appearing in direct speech forms are constructed rather than reported is that the

98dialogue may be attributed to more than one speaker. Extract [6] is such an example.

[6] Maya: a lot of people are left behind by themselvesand like: "Ah boy - I'm awful lonely"

It would be safe to assume that Maya isn' t reporting an utterance which she heard "a lot of people" say in unison. She is constructing dialogue to generally represent what the people who are left behind might say or think.

Extract [7] is another example of a line of dialogue attributed to more than one speaker. The topic ofconversation has been one character's lack of popularity. The consensus has been that the only reason to have this particular character around is for sex. In extract [7], Maya claims that even people who are having sexual relations with him don't like him.

[7] Maya: Even some people who are fuckin him are like:"Get outta my face"

Again, Maya, rather than reporting what she heard said by "some people who are fuckin him", is constructing dialogue which she attributes to those persons. Both this extract and extract [6] also illustrate that what is represented with direct speech forms is probably a representation of attitude

99rather than speech. Get outta my face is a common expression of attitude meaning "leave me alone." The following extract

illustrates a speaker representing her thoughts in direct

speech forms. In extract [8], Maya is telling about the

g i r l f ri end's reaction to her boyfriend cheating on her.

[8] Maya: Yeah she said: "Well at least she wasn't

goodlooking" and I's like: "Well are you sure

you prefer that to him fucking someone he

knows?" and she's: "Well I don't know - well

at least she's not goodlooking" and I was

like: "Ooooo she ain't real happy with this at

all"

The last line which Maya attributes to herself, "Ooooo she

ain't real happy with this a IX " > is clearly Maya's

expression of what she represents as her thoughts at the time

of the interaction. That it is not intended as a

representation of what she said is evidenced by the shift in

referents from you to s h e . The girlfriend, whom Maya has been

addressing within this represented event, is clearly not

addressed in this final constructed line. It w o uld appear

that Maya is addressing herself (in her mind) in this line

and, while doing so, refers to the girlfriend as she rather

than y o u .

100In the next example, Maya again represents her thoughts

in direct speech forms. Maya has been describing her attempt to avoid being unexpectedly assaulted by stingingcaterpillars. During the event which she is describing, she notices one such caterpillar approaching an unsuspecting stranger sitting near her.

[ 9 ] Maya: I'm just like: (whispering) "Should I tellher or should I not? Should I tell her?"

Again, in extract [9], it would appear that it is Maya's thinking rather than her speech that is being represented with the direct speech forms since there is no one present in the represented event other than the woman who is the referent of her (who would not be directly addressed as her).

Direct speech forms also occur after a quotative which explicitly indicates that the utterance represents thought or attitude rather than speech. For example, in extract [10], Maya indicates that she is representing her thoughts.

[10] Maya: I thought: "Hmm you know that's an amazingamount of will power coming from Kim"

Direct speech forms can even be used to represent the attitude being expressed by a facial expression. In extract

101[ 11], Sara is representing her father's attitude as is conveyed by his look of disbelief.

[11] Sara: My dad's looking at me like: "Yeah right uh-huh"

Sara is clearly not reporting a line which was spoken by her dad but is constructing with direct speech forms his attitude towards her.

Further support for the notion of dialogue being constructed is that dialogue may be constructed by an active listener to the description of an event. In the following extract, Sara is reporting a telephone conversation with a former friend during which Maya was not present.

[12] Sara: - and I said: "Well I'll call you some othertime" and she's like: "Yeah right" and I'mlike: "Don't start it - don't honey - don't -

Maya: "Don't throw attitude"Sara: "Don't throw attitude and don't start and

don't call me up and say 'Yeah right' at me"

Sara's second turn in this interaction uses an expression provided in the current context by Maya and hence quite unlikely to have been what was actually said in the reported

102interaction. Several other examples of completions by a second speakers will be presented in Chapter 5.

Yet another environment in which it is clear thatdialogue is being constructed rather than reported is wherespeech is attributed to nonhuman speakers (or human speakers too young to speak as in Brody (1991)). In extract [13], thedialogue is attributed to two dogs trapped in cages in a petstore.

[13] Maya: They all look weird - they're like: "Oh I'mreal worried about my cage - I don't think I get enough room - oh stop biting roy ear" and the other guy's: "Oh I'm always sad I thinkmaybe if I chew on your ear I'll feel better"

All the preceding examples illustrate the fitness of the term 'constructed dialogue' for what participants in conversation do when they represent speech. Though the deictic features of direct speech are preserved in the representations, it would be a serious mistake to treat such forms as 'direct' , or 'quoted' , speech when they are being used for purposes clearly unconnected to verbatim reporting.

103BE LIKE

As can be seen from the data, one of the most salient quotatives used by the speakers is be like. Schourup's (1982) discussion of quotative like is but part of his broader analysis of like as a discourse marker, discussed in Chapter 2. Schourup reports the use of be like as a common quotative in data gathered among younger speakers in Central Ohio in the early eighties. He also reports that the users of thequotative indicated that the quotative was used to introduce thought or attitude rather than speech. The evincive meaning of 1 ike (to indicate a possible minor unspecified discrepancy between what is said and what is meant) would seem to be appropriate as a introducer of thought, especially if the character to whom the thought is attributed is someone other than the speaker. He suggests that the extension of be like from an introducer of thought to an introducer of speech is reasonable given that " [sjpeakers are aware of the inexact nature of retrospective quotations" (p. 35). As an introducer of thought or speech, be like may indicate that the utterance which is to follow is being presented as only roughly similar to what was actually said or thought.

Tannen (1986) also mentions the use of quotative be like. She found that be like introduced eight percent of the lines of dialogue in the English spoken stories she examined. Like Schourup (1982), she suggests that the lines introduced by be like represent the "kind of thing that character was saying or

104thinking" (p. 321). Again in Talking Voices (1989), Tannenwrites that the quotative introduces what the attributed speaker "appeared to have felt like" (p. 115) . So, bothTannen and Schourup emphasize the use of be like to introduce thought represented in direct speech forms. Tannen (1986) also suggests in passing that if one were to imagine a continuum of introducing devices with graphic verbs of telling (e.g. groaned, whined) at one end and no introducer at all (zero-quotative) at the other, be like would fall near the no introducer end, "depending for effect on the way the dialogue is voiced" (p. 324) . Towards the end of this chapter, I will offer a further explanation for this placement of be like toward the zero-quotative end of the continuum.

Although Underhill (1988) doesn't mention the quotative use of 1 ike. she discusses the marker's use as a means to focus attention on what is said. He claims that "it functions with great reliability as a marker of new information and focus" (p. 234). In the following example presented byUnderhill, 1 ike does not have a for example or approximately meaning as it may in other environments.

[14] Teacher (confirming): Friday at one.Student: Change mine to Wednesday. I'll do it like

twelve to one.(Underhill, 1988, p. 245)

105Because the exam is mutually known to be an hour long, specifying the time twelve to one is not meant to convey approximateness. That is, the student is not using like to convey that the student will take the exam at some time around twelve to some time around one. Like is used rather to bring the time into focus since the schedule is being changed.

Meehan (1991), like Schourup and Tannen, writes that the apparent use of quotative be like is to introduce "reflections of feelings" (p. 48). In the examples that she encountered, be like introduces "very emotive" (p. 48) utterances. Sheextends Underhill's (1988) analysis of like as a marker of focus to quotative be like, claiming that its function is "to focus on the highlighted information expressed in the quote" (p. 48).

Blyth, Recktenwald and Wang (1990) also agree with Underhill that 1 ike serves as a focus marker. However, as they hint, so apparently do other quotatives. Unlike Schourup (1982), Tannen (1986, 1989), and Meehan (1991) who emphasizethe function of be like as an indicator that what follows is a representation of thought or attitude, Blyth, Recktenwald and Wang note the common use of quotative be like to introduce both inner monologue (thoughts and attitude) and speech. They claim that only be like may introduce either type of construction represented in direct speech forms. For example, think prefaces only inner monologue, while sav prefaces only representations of speech. As will be discussed in some

106detail i.. the following chapter, representations of thought or speech also may occur without a quotative (or with zero- quotative) .

In my data, be like introduces a much greater percentage of the constructed utterances than that noted by Tannen (1986) in her data. An examination of the data presented in the Appendix, which can be taken as representative of the speakers' typical behavior, revealed that the speakers use be like to introduce about 3 6 percent of the constructed utterances. However, when a speaker is constructing dialogue which is attributed to herself, the percentage of instances of be like increases to 60 percent. The only quotative to be used more than be like in general is zero-quotative (no introducing verb and no attributed speaker) , which will be discussed in Chapter 5. When a quotative is used (i.e. excluding zero- quotative) , be like is the quotative of choice 71 percent of the time, occurring approximately 65 percent of the time with third person and approximately 80 percent of the time with first persons speakers. This data, then, is quite unlike the data examined by Blyth, Recktenwald and Wang (1990), in which be like did not often introduce representations of speech or thought of third persons (singular or plural). It has been suggested that quotative be like is a phenomenon found mainly in the speech of younger speakers (Schourup, 1982; Tannen, 1986; Blyth, Recktenwald & Wang, 1990). Perhaps that explains the lack of interest in this quite common (if my data is any

107indication) quotative. Interest has generally lain in quantifying its occurrence within groups distinguishable on sociolinguistic criteria rather than attempting to account for its function. As we've seen, the only function that has been suggested for be like is to perhaps mark that what follows is to be interpreted as constructed thought or attitude rather than speech. In extracts [7] -[9] presented earlier, be like also appears to serve this function for the speakers in this data.

But as was noted by Blyth, Recktenwald and Wang and as might be suggested by the frequency with which be like is used as a quotative in my data, be like may also introduce representations of speech as well as attitude. This broadening of the use of the quotative be like may have resulted in the "pragmatic unmarking" (Fleischman, 1990, p. 54) of be like as a marker of attitude for these speakers. That is, because these speakers use be like as a quotative so much, it no longer marks that what follows is attitude. It appears that this function of be like is frequently served by iust + be like when the speakers are using direct speech forms to represent what appears to be clearly intended as attitude. Below are several examples of iust being used in conjunction with be like to introduce expressions of attitude.

[15] Sara: . . . they were just like: "Doobie doo."[16] Sara: I'm just like: "Oooo"

108[17] Maya:[18] Sara

[19] Maya:

[20] Maya:

[21] Sara

[22] Sara

. . . I'm just like: "Ooo gross" it seems to me you know how she's always really anti-reality and just like: "I don'twanna know reality". . . is real hard if you're addicted so I'mjust like: "Hmnun"He's just like: "And me and me and I can justpress a button"I used to hear them on the phone - I can just - I'd just sit there and listen to them and just like: (harsh voice) "Ugh God"We were just like: (harsh voice) "Whooaa"

Just + be like is also occasionally used to introduce what is apparently constructed speech, but it is much more frequently used to introduce represented thought. It could be that iust is being used to mark that what follows is not to be taken as reported speech. since in this data the speakers appear to use be like to introduce constructed dialogue as well as constructed attitude, iust + be like may be serving the function that be like formerly did.

Given that be like functions to introduce representations of speech, I would now like to examine whether be like occurs in free distribution with other guotatives at such sites or if it has other particular functions. Blyth, Recktenwald and Wang note be like (and gp) differ from verbs of saying such as

109sav. tell. or ask in that be like is restricted to introducing direct speech forms and may not be used to introduce indirect speech reports. For example, one cannnot say "and he was like that he was sorry."

Furthermore, when reporting a previous speech event, some verb forms appear to be reserved for reported speech while others are used for constructed dialogue (which is introduced in the examples below with be like! . For example, in extract [23], the reporting speaker uses ask in the past tense to report what she had said and be like in the present tense to introduce the constructed dialogue form.

[23] Maya: I asked her what you all had done to her andshe's like: "Nothing"

A similar pattern can be observed in extract [24] where the reported speech event is first established by a past tense verb (called) and each speaker's constructed dialogue is introduced by a present tense version of be like.

[24] Sara: she called me the other night and - uh - she'slike: (falsetto) "So hey whatcha doin'?" andI'm like: "Oh I'm sittin' here watchin' TV"

110The preference for using past tense for the background

reported events extends to summarized reports, while using the present tense of be like as introducer seems to allow the reporter to embell ish on what was actually said, as for example in extract [25].

[25] Maya: she's called me twice and I wasn't at home andshe got all pissed off because I wasn't athome and I'm like: "Well - contrary to whatyou might believe I'm not superglued to the receiver waiting for you to call - vibrator in hand"

That constructed dialogue is used for dramatic effect is well-established (Tannen, 1986; Schiffrin, 1981; Chafe, 1982). As noted by Schiffrin (1981), switches in tense are also used for dramatic effect. The co-occurrence of both of these dramatic devices would indicate that the speaker is putting the representations of speech into focus. Below an extended piece of discourse will be analyzed in which be like in thepresent tense, as well as other present tense quotatives,appear to focus the listeners' attention on certain aspects of the narrative. Before presenting the narrative, I would like to mention more about focus in terms of 'staging'.

IllSTAGING

The concept of "staging" has been in use by discourse

analysts for some time, but has typically been restricted to

d esc r i p t i o n s of the effects of different types of

themat i z a t i o n in sentence and clause structure (e.g., Grimes,

1975; Clements, 1979). Brown & Yule (1983) extended the use

of the term "staging" to the analysis of longer stretches of

spoken and written text where the actual structure of the

discourse seems to be organized in such a way that a specific

setting or frame of reference is established as background in

order that a particular topical contribution can be given

w ar r a n t e d prominence in the foreground. In the conventions of

English letter-writing, those structural aspects of background

setting and foreground announcement are fairly clear and

gen e r a l l y recognized (cf. Brown & Yule, 1983). However, in

the less conventionally predetermined flow of everyday

c onversa tion between friends, the staging, or the o r g a n ization

of what is a necessary setting for a particular topical

c ontribu tion to be relevantly in the foreground, has to be

accomplished on-line and without substantially interrupting

the flow. We may recognize the processes of staging taking

place in a conversation more often in their breakdown or

failure than in their accomplishment. Successful

a c c o m pli shment will tend to go unnoticed as part of the flow

of ordinary conversation. However, there are some speakers

who start on a topic, backtrack to establish an appropriate

112setting, get tied up in remembering the details of the

setting, and often have to ask eh where was I ? , and get a

reminder, in order to return to their original topic. Very

young speakers often present the opposite problem, e m barking

on some personally absorbing topical contribution without

first having established some common ground via staging, and

forcing their listeners to inquire about time, place, etc., in

order to make sense of what is being talked about (c f .

Brinton & Fujiki, 1989).

It may be that the term "failure" is too strong for such phenomena and that it would be more appropriate to talk in

terms of different qualities of staging, such as poor or

inadequate (given the needs of the interlocutors), excessive

or overelaborate (and hence tedious for a particular

audience), and so on, making the analysis dependent on the

r ecognition of certain aesthetic or rhetorical properties

w hi c h are valued (or not) by those taking part in the speech

event, rather than being tied to objective or definable

linguistic properties in the structure of the discourse.

In the analysis of the following narrative, I shall

attempt to show that when those who are recounting speech

events involving others take the part of the other(s), they

use the available range of reporting devices to mark the

relative dramatic status of the various elements in the

reported event.

113THE NARRATIVE

In extract [26] , Sara begins the narrative and then backtracks to make sure that her listeners are with her.

[26] Sara: You know what Don - this was what I waslaughing about on the phone when I waslaughing real hard - last night - Alan met Donand was talking to him - and Don calls Bob'puppy' - I don't know if you all knew that -

Kim: M-hmMaya: No

As can be seen in extract [26], when Sara begins her turn, sheseems to have a topic in mind (you know what Don - ) , butinterrupts herself to establish a setting from which the new topic can emerge. The staging process used here seems to be tied to establishing the source of the information to be presented, in addition to the more general staging function of establishing some (quite specific) common ground. The first element is effectively answering the implicit question 'How do you know these things?' by establishing a connection I - phone - Alan - Alan - talk - Don. which will be the nominal source of the speaker's knowledge of the events and speech of both Alan and Don. I shall return to the structural impact, on this speaker's topic organization, of her care in marking the source of information presented, but first, like this speaker,

114we have to deal with the negative response to her attempt to establish as common ground an aspect of Don's relationship with Bob. By the end of this extended turn at talk, this speaker's topic will emerge as having to do with 'Don's treatment of Bob', so it seems important that the speaker do some initial staging to introduce (if not already known to the listeners) one aspect of how Don treats Bob. The speaker continues as in extract [27],

[27] Sara:

Maya: Sara:

Don calls Bob 'puppy' and eh - Alan's like: "You really ought to call him 'Bobo'" and he said Don fell out /laughing/=

/oh my god/=and he's like: "Oh really? Why?" and Alantold him the story about Bobo - Bobo the clown and all - everything that goes on - like justsome of th** stuff that goes on in B andhow the B people think about it - and hesaid Don was just falling out - and so anyway

The major function of this part of the speaker's account seems to be the establishment of a world of reference in which others such as Alan, as well as Don, make Bob a figure of derision and actually set out to humiliate him. It also establishes some form of collusion between Alan and Don wherein they both share a joke concerning Bob, a situation

115which will be repeated in another form later in the speaker's recounting or events. It is clear that, for this speaker, the sharing of the joke is the important feature of this part of her reported conversation with Alan because other details of that part of the conversation are made very vague fand all - everything that goes on - like iust some of the stuff) and pushed into the background.

There is also a very marked difference in the way various items of the reported conversation are presented in this extract. The reporting verb told is used to summarize least important material; the verb said. in the past tense only, is used to attribute descriptions of salient events to the reported speaker; more dramatically, the construction is like, in the present tense, is used to introduce constructed dialogue and create the impression of a two line conversation as the highlighted part of this reported interaction between Alan and Don. Figure 1 shows the stage management effect of the different reporting verbs as an arrangement from the rear (at left) to the front (at right) of the metaphorical stage.

The pattern discernible in Figure l seems to associate present tense reporting structures with constructed dialogue while the past tense of the reporting verb said is kept for reported speech concerning actual physical events. This pattern is even more apparent in the speaker's presentation of her major topical contribution, to which she returns, having

116

Repor ted Reported ConstructedEvents Speech Dialogue

1 Alan's like: "You reallyought to call him 'B o b o ' 11

2 and he saidDon fell out laughing

3 and he's like: "Ohreally? W h v ? "

4 and Alan told the story about Bobo, etc.

5 and he said Don was just falling out

117marked off the 'Bobo' part with a clear indicator of return- to-topic in and so anvwav (cf. Levinson, 1983).

I will present the continuation of this speaker's account as extract [28], analyzed in Figure 2, using the same division of b a c k g r o u n d / r e p o r t e d s p e e c h e v e n t s a n dforeground/constructed dialogue to illustrate one important aspect of the structural organization behind this speaker's presentation of her topic.

[2 8] Sara: he said he was standing there and he was justout dancing around on the edge of the dance floor and Don who looks real Butch but is this major Nellie Queen comes running up to him and goes: "Now just nod your head - nod yourhead" - and Bob was standing over there watching with this horrified - Alan said he had this totally horrified look on his face - and uh - Don goes: "Nod your head - nod yourhead" and so Alan's like: "Oh okay" and hesays: "Now take your hands and go like this"and so Alan did like that (holding hands about ten inches apart) and then he's: "Okay nownod again - okay okay thanks" and urn - um he just like took off and then Bob came haulin' ass over there and goes: "Man I can't believehe asked you that - I can't believe he asked

lieyou that" and Alan's like: "What?" and hesays: "Did he just ask you how big your dickwas?" and Alan is like: "Yeah"

As shown in Figure 2, the purely physical events which are narrated (simple past tenses) by the speaker, without any overt indication of the source of the information (i.e., no reporting verb), are in the left hand column. In the center column, there are two examples of reported speech, both tied to said. and employing durative aspect marking to establish states or descriptive settings as background for those events which are represented in the right hand column or, in theatrical terms, at the front of the stage. All these front stage events are represented via present tense verb forms,even the introductory characterization of Don in the scene.Beyond this introduction of Don, the present tense markers of report are extremely brief and seem to have restricted uses for different characters in the scene. The form be like is used here exclusively for Alan's contributions whereas goes. savs. and is are used for the others' contributions.

What emerges in the far right column of Figure 2 as the constructed dialogue of this reporter can, in fact, be read as a script for three players quite independent of all the stage directions present in the rest of Figure 2.

6

7

8

910

11

1213

14

15

1617

18

119Figure 2

Reported Reported ConstructedEvents Speech Dialogue

he said he was standing there and he was just out dancing, etc.

and Don . . . goes: "Nowjust nod your.head - nod

your head"and Bob was standing over there watching with this horrified - Alan said he had this totally horrified look on his face

and uh Don goes: "Nodyour head - nod vour head" and so Alan's like: "Oh

oKay"and he says: "Now take

vour hands and go like this"

and so Alan did like that

and then he's: "Okav now nod again - okav okav thanks"

and urn - urn he just like took off and then Bob came haulin ass over there

and goes: "Man I can't believe he asked you that ~ I can't believe he asked vou that"and Alan's like: "What?"and he says: "Did he iust ask vou how big vour dick was? "and Alan is like: "Yeah"

120Immediately after the last line of Sara's turn,

illustrated in Figure 2, another speaker offers a continuation of the final piece of constructed dialogue, with an imitated lower pitch male voice, "it' s this big11. as shown in extract [29]. Initially the next speaker (Maya) appears to be linking her turn very closely with the previous speaker's topic by providing a possible additional line of dialogue. However, when Maya continues, she shifts the topic slightly to focus on Bob as a topic entity. This would be a natural next move, in conversational terms, but Sara is clearly not finished with her speaker's topic and returns to the previous event time to spell out, though marked as hearsay, what must have transpired in a side stage scene prior to the events presented in Figure 2. Sara then goes on to make explicit, and reinforce with repetition, the interpretation of events which she thinks is appropriate.

What this does illustrate is the risk inherent in using an indirect means, via the constructed dramatization of events, to express speaker's topic. The listener(s) may enjoy the theater and may even show involvement in the constructed scene by anticipating a next line of dialogue, yet not interpret the events as the speaker intended. The speaker may then have to make that interpretation explicit, as illustrated in extract [29].

121(29) Maya:

Sara:

Maya: Sara: Maya:

Sara: Maya:

"It's this big" - I told Liz that I - I call him Son of Gumbi and she said she' 11 startmaking everybody call him that in H - shecracked up - she bought me a beer - "Yeah he kinda does look like Play-Doh doesn't he?" and I'm like: "Yeah"Apparently he told Bob: "I'm gonna go ask himhow big his dick is - I think he's cute" Really? oh - oh Just to wreck Bob's nervesOh okay I thought maybe he really thought he was cuteOh no - just to wreck Bob Well that's kinda sad

Worthy of note in extract [29] is Maya's use, in her first turn, of the three types of structure, already identified in Figure 2, in order to create the staging for her topical contribution. After the initial use of constructed dialogue as the connection to the previous speaker's turn, Maya uses past tense reporting verbs fl told Liz: she said) to create background via reported speech, past tense physical action verbs for reported events (cracked up: bought), and finally constructed dialogue for the interaction. While Maya uses I'm like to introduce her own constructed dialogue contribution, she uses no reporting verb form at all to introduce the other

122speaker's contribution, relying on a recognition of the already salient current agent of action (Liz) and a voice quality shift to determine speaker identification.

When Sara, in her first turn in extract [29], returns to the scene of her previous report, she produces a form of constructed dialogue marked with a reporting verb (told! which is neither lexically (verb choice) nor morphologically (tense choice) similar to those used earlier. This sample of constructed dialogue, it would seem, must have a differentstatus than those observed earlier. There is, of course, amajor marker of status shift in thematic position within this utterance. The use of apparently. described by Chafe (1986) as an indicator of hearsay, marks a shift out of the chain of report (Alan to Sara, Sara to group) because neither Alan nor Sara could have been present for this dialogue. Thus,although it is presented in the form of constructed dialogue,this dramatic event is situated off on side stage as a possible version of a background event and marked as such via apparently and the introducing verb form.

Having described in detail the elements contributing to the staging of this speaker's topic in one fragment of conversational discourse, we can list the features which characterize the relative status of those elements in Figure 3, which also attempts to capture the front stage (on the right) versus rear stage (on the left) position of those elements.

123

Figure 3

Time 1

Sara to Group

Past Tense

Punctual Aspect

Physical Actions

"told"

Time 3 Don and Bob to A lan

Present Tense

Punctual Aspect

Dialogue

"says/ is like/ is/ goes"

Time 2 hian to £ara

Past Tense

Durative Aspect

States

"said"

Time 4 Don to Bob

"Apparently" + Past Tense

Punctual Aspect

Di alogue

"told"

124BE LIKE AS A MARKER OF PERSPECTIVE

The question which was raised earlier was whether be

l i k e , when it is used to introduce representations of speech,

appears to be in free d i s t r ibution with other quotatives. As

we can see from the narrative above, the present tense forms

of several quotatives — is, s a y s , g o e s . and be l i k e , as well

as zero-quotative — are used to introduce the constructed

dialogue w h ich seems to be that part of the narrative that Sara intends to foreground, while the past tense is reserved

for background details which set the stage for the drama. It

w o uld seem, from our data, that there is a preference for

using said to introduce reported speech in the narrative,

while the several different forms in the (historical) present

tense are used simply to accompany indications of character shift. Though be like is but one of the quotatives involved

in this foregrounding function, it does appear to be used to

"track" a particular participant or character (F l e i s c h m a n ,

1990, p. 81). As was noted earlier, be like is used

con s i s t e n t l y to introduce Alan's and only Alan's constructed

dialogue. Recall that Sara credits Alan with being the source of the narrative when she was establishing its setting. It

might be the case, then, that be like in narratives of this

type, in which a speaker constructs dialogue for several

characters, marks whose point of view is being represented,

in the narrative above, perhaps be like is reserved for Alan's

125character to mark that it is the perception of this character

which "orients the report" (Fleischman, 1990, p. 217).

That be like functions to mark whose point of view is

being represented may be further supported by the fact that be

like appears to occur with greater frequency as a quotative with first person speakers than third person speakers. The

prominence with which speakers in my data present thei r

pe r s p ectives and thei r roles in the events would suggest that

they are foregrounding their own points of view, or egos, over

others. This would be in marked contrast to the findings of

Fleischman (1990), who suggests that first person speakers, in

order to be polite ("do not foreground ego" (p. 84)), try to

avoid self-quotation. When narrators must "resort" to self­

quotation, she suggests that they tend to "soft-pedal" them

(p. 85). It is no surprise that my data, which is dominated by speakers' self-attributions of attitudes as well as speech,

produced a quite different finding. Much of my data involves

speakers reporting experiences through the filter of their own

perspective and, consequently, it is the e x p e r i e n c e r 's point

of view that is typically the dominant source of what is being

reported. The quotative be like is used to mark that

ex p e r iencing point of view more than any other. Be like

would in that case signal the closeness of the constructed

dialogue to its attributed speaker. If this is the case, then be like may indeed be placed on the continuum of quotatives

close to the zero-quotative end as Tannen (1986) suggests.

For as we will see in the next chapter, zero-quotative another marker of closeness.

ZERO-QUOTATIVE

I NTRODUCTIONA feature of constructed dialogue (or, as will be seen,

constructed attitude) which seems to have been virtually

ignored is that it may appear without a quotative. That is,

constructed dialogue may appear without an introducing verb or

attributed speaker. The following example from the

conversational data from the B-K conversation presented in

Craig and Tracy's Conversation Coherence (1983) illustrates

the phenomenon:

(1] K: -Yes. I have that same problem. I finally

resorted to saying ((louder, mock exasperation))

"Dad? What do you w a n t . 11 ((high pitch, comical))

"I don't need anything." (p. 305)

The first bit of dialogue is introduced and attributed to the

reporting speaker/character, while the second bit of dialogue

( 111 don't need a n y t h i n g " ) has no introductory quotative, nor

is the attributed speaker identified. Despite the extensive,

f ine-grained analysis which this conversation received, by

several different investigators in the volume edited by Craig

and Tracy (1983), no attention was devoted to this aspect of

how conversational participants represent previous

conversational interactions. In this section, I would like to

127

128focus on this little studied feature of reported discourse and try to identify the distribution and favored situations of use of what can be described as "zero quotative*"

One researcher who has commented on the occurrence in conversations of direct speech forms with zero quotative is Deborah Tannen. Tannen (198 6) reports that in theconversational stories she examined, dialogue was presented without a quotative about 26 percent of the time (more often even than in the American novel she examined where the conventions of written speech would aid a reader to make proper speaker attributions). Speakers mark dialogue, yhe writes, "by changing their voices to take on the characters' voices" (p. 319) This effect was obviously noted by thetranscriber of the data presented in extract [1] where the paralinguistic shifts of the two speaking voices are marked in parentheses. Tannen illustrates the ability of a speaker to represent several characters with the following story about a hospital emergency room in which the narrator shifts voice quality, amplitude, prosody and pacing to represent different characters:

[2] They come bustin' through the door - blood is everywhere on the walls everywhere(raised pitch) It's okay Billy

129it's okaywe're gonna make it(normal voice) What's the hell wrong with you . . . (p.319)

By shifting vocal quality, the narrator conveys that the line It's okav Billv is attributed to a different speaker than the line What's the hell wrong with vou.

Apart from Tannen pointing out that 'unintroduced dialogue' (in her terms) is quite common, scant attention has been paid to this feature of conversational report. In the following sections, the occurrence of unintroduced dialogue, or what I shall refer to as direct speech forms which appear with ' zero-quotative' (marked in the text as 0) will be described in a range of situations. In some of these sites, zero-quotatives appear to be optional; for example, be like appears to also be available at these sites. At other sites, however, the zero-quotative seems to be the most favored* I will attempt to explain why zero-quotatives appear to be favored at these sites by describing what the absence of a quotative appears to allow a speaker/narrator to do.

STRUCTURALLY DETERMINED ATTRIBUTIONA speaker's report of a conversation involving two

characters may explicitly mark which character is speaking at each turn. In [3], Maya is narrating an interaction she had

130with an older man who owns apartments across the street from where she currently lives. Maya uses the quotative be like to introduce the lines of constructed dialogue. The speaker also indicates a shift in character voices by speaking with a strong Southern accent when she takes the role of the older man.

[3] Maya: . . . and he's like: "Know anybody who wantsan apartment?" I was like: "Maybe" and he'slike: "How about one seventy five for anefficiency?" and I was like: "Well let me seeit" and he's like: "Ok”

In extract [3], it is worth noting that the use of aquotative allows the reporting speaker to use different tenses for both speakers, with the narrator maintaining past tense forms for introducing lines of dialogue attributed to herself and present tense forms for the other participants'introductory quotatives. Thus, extract [ 3 ] presents anexample of a reported conversation in which there are many markers used to identify the participant structure: differentpronouns (1 - Jig); different tenses in the quotative (past - present); different voice quality indicators; different speech acts (more questions from one, more answers from the other). This elaborate marking of the turn-taking in a reported conversation is, however, the exception rather than the rule

131in much of the data investigated here. For example, the conventional turn-taking structure can be taken advantage of to attribute constructed dialogue to a character even where a quotative does not appear (where the speakers use zero- quotatives) . In extract [4], the speaker, Sara, reports a recent telephone conversation with her father who is making sure she isn't upset after having been refused for a job.

[4] Sara: . . . my dad called to to to make it better -I was like: "Dad I'm over it" (falsetto) 0:"Uhh well your mother said you were upset"

The turn-taking structure allows the statement following the bit of dialogue attributed to Sara to be attributed to her father despite the absence of an introductory quotative. Of course, the referential term Dad and the deictic vour in your mother. also contribute to the ease with which the words are attributed by a listener to the correct character. A similar example follows in which Maya is reporting an interaction with her friend A1 who has decided that her dislike of a former mutual friend is warranted.

[ 5 ] Maya: . . . A1 comes up 0: "Jesus Maya you wereright - she's a complete boob" 0: "Yes yesshe is - thank you - score one for me"

132Again, the turn-taking structure allows for the assumption that immediately following a statement addressed to one character (especially when that character is the reporting speaker) will be a statement by that character in response’.

In extract [ 6 ] , the speaker reports a previous interaction involving Maya and another character, Jan.

[6] Maya: . . . she was on the bus the same time I wasand she's like: "Oh there's that guy - wow Iknow him!" 0: "How?" 0: "Oh I really can'tget into it like in a f ive minute conversation"

In [6], a question (How?) following a statement attributed to one character (Jan) must be attributed to the other character (Maya). The turn-taking structure also allows for a response to the question to be attributed to the other character (Jan). So without the explicit markings that appeared in extract [3], constructed dialogue can still be attributed to the appropriate character. The previous examples also illustrate that the unintroduced dialogue (the zero-quotatives) may be attributed either to the reporting speaker's character within the report or to another character involved in the reported interaction. The following two extracts contain furtherexamples of zero-quotatives introducing responses toquestions. Again the conventional turn-taking structure of

133English allows for the bits of dialogue to be attributed to the appropriate character.

[7] Sara: . . . Mom goes: "Ah see anyone you knowthere?" 0: "No thank God"

[8] Sara: . . . he's like: "Do you know anybody whowould be into that?" 0: "No I sure don't -everybody I know wants sex"

In both extracts [7] and [8], the negative response with zero-quotative is immediately recognizable as an answer, hence attributable to the reporting speaker, following the polar question from another identified character. In extract [9] below, the reporting speaker is recounting a conversation with her mother and initially attributes the wh-question to her mother while presenting her response with zero-quotative. Once this interactive pattern of mother-asking, reporter- responding is established, then the next question-answer sequence between the same two participants can be reported with zero-quotatives for both turns.

[9] Sara: . . . she's like: (falsetto) "So what timedid you get in?" We got in like at two-thirty

(falsetto) 0: "Well I got home around alittle after one" cause they sleep like the dead - they don't hear us come in anyway and

134uh so (falsetto) 0: "Did you all have a nicetime?" (falsetto) 0: "Yeah"

In all these cases, extracts [7] - [9], the structurally determined attribution is accomplished in much the same way as lines of dialogue in written fiction are attributed in sequence to two characters. Extract [10], from Robbins(1980), illustrates the familiar structure.

[10] "You're turning me in, then?""I don't know. It depends. Are you really going to usethe rest of your dynamite?""It's likely.""Why?""Because that's what I do." (p. 74)

while spoken reports of interactions do not have the punctuation and separate lineation of the written mode to indicate different voices, they do seem to share the dramatic effect of having the characters' words directly expressed rather than summarized or reported in indirect speech forms (Tannen, 1986; Wolfson, 1982). It may be that reporters of spoken interaction use zero quotatives for the same dramatic purpose, and avoid the clear indications of reporter presence which necessarily come with other quotatives such as sav. go and be like.

135ZERO-QUOTATIVES AND DRAMATIC EFFECT

The avoidance of a quotative may be used to achieve a dramatic effect which may not be achieved with the presence of a quotative. At certain sites zero-quotatives appear to be reflect the urgency of the interaction being reported. Extract [11] is an example.

[11] Maya: . . . she comes over and she's like: ’’I ranover here" and I'm like: "Why?" 0: "I'm notgonna go with Sara because you're upset with me"

This example begins to suggest something which may be accomplished only with zero-quotatives. The characters in this narrative are Maya and Leon who are very good friends. Leon (who is also friends with Sara) and Maya have had an argument over the telephone in which Maya accused Leon of not being a very good friend as of late. We enter the reported interaction at [11] where Maya is telling Sara about Leon's desperation to make up with her. While the final turn in this sequence can be attributed to Leon on the basis of the turn- taking sequence as described above, the absence of a quotative allows Maya to illustrate Leon's urgency to make things right again. The use of a zero-quotative in the report of this interaction can be viewed as an iconic representation of one aspect of that interaction. In his discussion of the

136iconicity of linguistic distance, Haiman (1983) proposes that

the lingusitic distance between two expressions can be defined as the "number of syllables (or even the number of seconds)

b e t w e e n them" (p. 781). In this case, the absence of any

elements creating linguistic distance (i.e. zero quotative) is

a reflection of the absence of any temporal distance between

the end of Maya's question (W h y ? ) and the onset of Leon's

response (I'm not gonna go with Sara because you're upset with m e ). In Maya's version of the reported event, she uses the

z e r o - quotative option (and not, for example, a fuller

q uo t a t i v e such as "she immediately said") to d r a m a t i c a l l y

d e m o n s t r a t e the urgency with which Leon attempts to make sure

that Maya will not be upset with her.This dr a m a t i z a t i o n of an event through direct speech

forms with zero-quotative is also present in Maya's

d e s c r i p t i o n of scenarios where no specific interacting

characters are introduced, as can be illustrated in extract

(12) .

[12] Maya: Yeah in my apartment I would have to buy like

four boxes of maxi pads and lick and stick em

all to all the windows to get even the

slightest greyness in the house - it's kinda

like Sunny Brook Farm in there in the morning

- you can't sleep - it makes me angry and I'll

pile things over my face and then I can't

137breathe and then I get real pissed and I wake

up and have a glorious morning - 0: "Good

morning Maya" (harsh voice) 0: "Fuck you"

In keeping with the sunny, "glorious morning" scenario, Maya

first produces the automatic Good morning greeting, attributedto no one in particular (hence zero-quotative), but then

i mmediately produces the rapid response, again as an automatic

response (with zero-quotative) to show how "pissed" she is in

the m o rning when the sun is shining in her bedroom.

Another example may go further to illustrate the dramatic

effects achieved by a speaker who avoids using a quotative. Maya is reporting an interaction involving herself and Ellen,

an o n - a g a i n - o f f - a g a i n friend.

(13] Maya: . . . but I got really mad at her once and I

like picked her up by her collar at the bar

and pushed her over the couch and so now if I

start to get mad she hurries up and fixes it .

. . - I'm like: "L O O K don't you" (falsetto)

0: "No no no - I don't mean it - I don't mean

it"

The absence of a quotative following the dialogue attributed

to Maya allows the speaker to dra m a t i c a l l y illustrate the

speed with which Ellen "hurries up and fixes" their

138difficulties. If Maya had chosen to introduce the last line of dialogue with, for example, be like, the urgency which she apparently desires to display would be diminished. Maya's construction of the interaction again contains a reflection of a crucial aspect of her version of the interaction itself. The distance between the two expressions which is diminished by the use of a zero-quotative corresponds to Ellen's attempt (according to Maya) to prevent a rift from appearing between her and Maya.

GIVING VOICE TO ATTITUDEThe dramatic presentation of a character's words may also

be the motivation for the occurrence of direct speech forms with zero-quotative within reports where no actual interaction or dialogue is being reported. At these sites the term "constructed dialogue" may not be quite appropriate. The speaker at these sites does not appear to be constructing a situation in which two or more characters are involved in a dialogue. The only person who hears these expressions of attitude is the interlocutor in the current interaction (either Maya or Sara during their taped conversation). It also seems that the speaker is doing more than representing an unspoken thought with direct speech forms. Rather, it appears that the speaker expresses her attitude or the attitude of another character, where attitude may be defined as thought with emotion. In many cases, the speaker has already

139described her thoughts in regard to a specific topic before representing her attitude in direct speech forms. It appears that she takes advantage of the dramatic effect of the direct speech forms to give emotion to her thoughts, or, as I will call it, to construct her attitude.

The expression of attitude with direct speech forms is discussed by Tannen (1986), Underhill (1988), and Schourup (1982) as being conveyed by the use of the quotative be like. Direct speech forms which are used to dramatically express attitude may also appear without quotatives (with zero- quotative) . A noticeable feature of the examples to follow is a marked voice quality shift on the speaker's part. Such voice quality shifts provide paralinguistic cues that the speaker has moved to another voice, distinct from the narrative voice, to give dramatic expression to the attitude being conveyed. In extract [14], Sara expresses her reluctance to give Leon one of her kittens because of Leon's thoughtless (if not cruel) treatment of the kittens. After expressing her lack of trust in Leon, she constructs an utterance which gives dramatic expression to her attitude.

[14 ] Sara: I don't know - I wouldn't trust her with oneof the kittens cause she would break one of them's neck (creaky voice) 0: "Would you quitdoing that to that kitten?"

140The constructed utterance Would vou quit doing that to that kitten? is marked by Sara with a shift in voice quality to indicate a shift from the narrative voice.

In extract [15], Sara expresses her distaste for one aspect of the relationship between her roommate and her roommate's boyfriend.

[15] Sara: . . . he comes into the door and like sheflies into his arms. . . . (harsh voice ) 0:"Would you stop that?"

Sara does not appear to be describing a situation in which she asks her roommate and her boyfriend to stop being so melodramatic. Instead she is dramatically expressing her own private reaction toward their behavior by presenting it in direct speech form.

A similar example follows in which again Sara constructs her attitude toward the same characters as above. Lying in her own bed, Sara reports that she can hear the sounds made in the other bedroom and expresses her lack of appreciation for the noise, producing an immediate negative reaction to the reported ves sounds. Once again, it is a personal reaction that is being reported and not something that was actually said as part of a dialogue.

141[16] Sara: . . . and you got the kittens mewing on this

side and Kim and Mike mewing through the wall over there: (breathy voice) M0h yes oh yes*10: "Oh no I gotta go to work tomorrow"

In the following example, Sara has been telling Maya that she intends to tell Kim what she honestly thinks about Kim's decision to get married. We enter the dialogue in extract[17] where she is guessing what the results of her honesty will be. Again she appears to be expressing her attitude rather than constructing dialogue.

[17] Sara: I'm probably not gonna be in her wedding butthen but - (creaky voice) 0: "You're sellingout - I hate it"

In extract [17], Sara is not reporting an interaction in which she uttered the constructed line (You're selling out - I hate i t ) . She says a few turns earlier that she intends very soon to tell Kim that she thinks she is "selling o ut." She conveys to Maya, at this point, her disappointment in Kim's decision through a dramatic expression of attitude.

In the following example, Sara combines constructed attitude with a statement conveying the same feeling.

142[18] Sara: . . . And then - and now that she's gonna

marry Mike I mean - I don't like him at all -(creaky voice) 0: "I don't like you at all"

It would appear that Sara expresses her attitude in direct speech forms to emphasize that attitude, and, in doing so, does not use an introductory quotative such as be like.

In the preceding examples the attitude being conveyed is the speaker's. As with be like, however, the speaker may also express another character's attitude with this form. In extract [19], Sara is explaining to Maya that Kim is "peeved" at her because Sara left their apartment right before the pizzas that Kim was making were finished.

[19] Sara: She's kinda peeved at me now - (nasal voice)0: "I was makin pizza for you"

Sara indicates a shift in voice (from her voice as narrator to Kim's voice) with a shift in voice quality. As in extract[18], Sara states the character's feelings (in the previous example, it was her own feelings) and then, in direct speech forms, dramatically expresses those feelings.

Extract [20] is another example of a speaker constructingattitude which must be attributed to another character.

143[20] Maya: . . . Now she's got like this big project you

know - this big reason to live - a baby - I just (breathy voice) 0: "Make myselfworthwhile - let's have a bambino"

With a shift in voice quality, Maya indicates that the expression of attitude which appears in direct speech forms is to be attributed to Kim (whose voice is often indicated by both Maya and Sara by a shift to a breathy quality). Though this attitude is attributed to Kim, Maya also conveys her own attitude towards Kim's decision to marry and have a baby. That is, Maya superimposes her reporting voice and Kim's voice. While the breathy voice is attributed to Kim, the overriding sentiment expressed by the construction is Maya's disapproval of her estimation of Kim's way of thinking. More examples like this will appear in a later section in which the speakers merge their voices to become the (parodied) voice of a character.

A double-voiced effect is not only available with zero- quotatives. This effect can also be achieved in constructed dialogue (attitude) which is introduced by a quotative such as be like. In the following extract, Maya clearly superimposes her voice over the voice of the character to which the dialogue is attributed.

144[21] Maya: he started crying - he's like: "I'm sorry I

just blah blah blah"

Maya's attitude towards the character represented is conveyed by the utterance which she constructs for the character. Her feelings about the worthlessness of the character's excuses are expressed by her dismissal of what he might have said and her substitution of blah blah blah. Through thesuper imposition of her own voice as the narrator over the character's voice, Maya is able to convey her attitude towards the character while constructing dialogue for him.

SUPPORTIVE BEHAVIOR WITH ZERO-QUOTATIVES (TWO-WAYCONVERGENCE)

In the examples of the previous sections, the discussion of zero-quotatives has concentrated on quotatives occurring within a single speaker's report or construction. In this section, I will examine zero-quotatives that immediately follow the previous speaker's turn. In the followingexamples, the constructed dialogue (or attitude), which is being zero-introduced by one speaker immediately following a turn by the previous speaker, is being attributed to the previous speaker. At these sites, the constructed dialogue (or attitude) is always zero-introduced. Zero-quotatives appear to be a means to intensify the involvement between the interactants. Extract [22] illustrates the phenomenon:

145[22] Sara: Kim does that a lot too - she's like: "Every

little thing da da da da - I hate it when you do that - I hate it" - I ' m like: "Let me sityou down and tell you a few home truths"

Maya: 0: "Let me get down to the basics for you"

Since Maya was not present during the reported interaction, her direct speech forms are clearly not recalled fragments of what was said, but represent purely constructed echoes of what Sara produces as her reported expression. The line constructed by Maya must be attributed to Sara. Bublitz's (1988) descriptions of primary and secondary speakers discussed earlier may be useful at this point. In extract[22], Sara would be called the primary speaker since she is performing the topical action, and Maya, the secondary speaker. Maya, in her role of secondary speaker, shows supportive behavior of the primary speaker by paraphrasing her. Bublitz writes that by paraphrasing, the secondaryspeaker reflects the primary speaker's point of view. Maya shows her support and understanding of Sara by echoing her attitude in paraphrase, and with a syntactically parallel structure.

In extract [23], Maya is describing her evil mood when she is awakened in the morning because the sun is shining in her face. Her constructed dialogue is followed by aparaphrase which is zero-introduced by Sara.

146[23] Maya: . . . and then I get real pissed and I wake up

and have a glorious morning - 0: "Goodmorning Maya" (harsh voice) 0: "Fuck you"

Maya:Sara: Really (harsh voice) 0: "Eat me and die"

Really (harsh voice) 0: "I wish you wouldfall over="

Sara: » (harsh voice) 0: "Heretic" really 0: "I wish

Maya:you would fall down the steps"0: "Have some arsenic tea?" God I'm ugly inthe morning sometimes

In Maya's first turn in extract [ 2 3 ] she constructs an imaginary exchange to dramatically illustrate her awful mood. Again by taking advantage of the turn-taking structure, the first line of dialogue appearing with zero-quotative Good morning Mava may be attributed to whoever wakes her up and the unintroduced response may be attributed to Maya. She also indicates a change in speakers with a shift in voice quality. In the next line, Sara paraphrases Maya's response while also echoing the voice quality used by Maya in the previous turn.The speakers then continue jointly constructing with zero-

quotatives Maya's range of possible responses to the greeting. Sara's second contribution repeats Maya's preceding utterance (I wish vou would fall over) and adds a variation. By speaking with the same voice quality and keeping her lines of

147constructed dialogue similar in content and form, Sara echoes Maya.

Other examples of paraphrasing are illustrated in extracts (24] and [25].

[24] Sara

Maya: [25] Sara

Maya

I got up at nine and Kim slept till like twelve-thirty - I'm like: (harsh voice) "Getup - get up you heathen"0: "Get out now - get out of my bed". . . he's like: "Oh I forgot - I was standing out back and Ellen was talking to me and that song came on and she's like: 'Come dance comedance' and so I was gonna go dance with her but then I saw you and I started dancing with you - I guess she's probably mad at me" - and I'm going: "If you're looking for sympathyyou're looking at the wrong person"Yeah 0: "You're talking to the wrong carbonunit"

In both extracts, Maya paraphrases with syntactically parallel structures the constructed dialogue (or attitude) attributed to Sara in Sara's previous turn.

Another means of supporting a primary speaker is by supplementing what she has said. Supplements, according to Bublitz (1988), "are in the primary speaker's interest and

148conform to their assumptions and attitudes" (p. 243) . In the following extract, Sara is explaining to Maya how she knows the age of a particular acquaintance of theirs. Since she is relaying information that is new to Maya, it is obvious that Maya is echoing Sara's constructed attitude.

[ 26 ] Sara: Yeah cause she came to Bucky' s Bar. H e ' s1 ike: "She just turned eighteen" - 0: "Ohboy"

Maya: 0: "Fuckin A - you got some legal stuff now -huh Mike?"

The constructed dialogue that Sara attributes to Mike (iifi) is followed by a dramatic expression of attitude attributed to Sara. Maya again echoes Sara's attitude by constructing an utterance that conforms to the attitude expressed by Sara.

Completing what the primary speaker begins is a third way to show support or involvement. When a secondary speaker completes what the primary speaker begins, Bublitz writes that "the secondary speaker not only refrains from contributing a new proposition, but he does not even use his own words, because the form presented is triggered off and determined by the unfinished preceding contributions, and is thus predictable" (p. 240). The following extracts are examples of completion.

149(27) Maya;

Sara: [28] Sara

Maya

[29] Sara

Maya

. . . No she's like (falsetto): "Houston islike" it's all this - "Utopia and I'm so popular there and everybody really loves me" and I keep tellin her==0: "Huh-uh baby"

. and I was like: "Well if you feelinspired just go and" you know "paint something on those jeans" and she's like: "I'm gonna paint the word carpet muncher across the cuff" - I'm like==0: "Oh thanks . . . With a hyphen orwithout?". . . She's like: "Well my body is doing allthat funky stuff you do when you ovulate" - I was like: "Ahhh well you know"*=0: "You know that also goes with pregnancy"

In examples [27] through [29], the secondary speaker completes the turn begun by the primary speaker by constructing a line of dialogue attributed to the primary speaker. In the first two examples, the secondary speaker appears to complete the turn before the primary speaker has a chance to. The secondary speaker appears to be anticipating the primary speaker's response to the extent that she feels able to complete the response for her. In extract [29], though Sara has begun the construction of her response, Maya repeats the

150last words spoken by Sara fyou k n o w ) and continues to complete

the response* Completions of the primary speaker's turn by

constructing dialogue for her would seem to show even stronger

support or involvement than completions which do not involve

constructed dialogue (or attitude). Not only are the wordswhich are spoken by the secondary speaker predicted by the

primary speaker, as Bublitz points out, but these words are

also attributed to the primary speaker.

A l t h o u g h Bublitz (1988) doesn't talk about supportive

contributions in such terms, "accommodation" seems to be what

is at issue. It appears that the secondary speaker isconverging toward the primary speaker. Brown and Levinson

(1978) write that where a speaker

"is trying to stress common ground that he shares with [a hearer], we would expect him to make only the minimal adjustment in point of view when reporting; that is, we would expect him to assume that [the hearer's] point of view is his, or his is [the hearer's], (p. 122)

By paraphrasing, supplementing or completing the primary

speaker's contribution, the secondary speaker appears to make

no adjustment to the point of view expressed. She seems to be

co mmunicating to the primary speaker that she so thoroughly

un d erstands and supports her that she can speak with the

primary speaker's voice in words and structures almost

identical to those of the primary speaker. It is, however,

important to note that in these data the secondary speaker

does not directly repeat the primary speaker's words, indeed,

further examples illustrate that rather than the secondary

151speaker accommo d a t i n g the primary speaker to the point of

losing her own voice, she may be attempting to share the

primary speaker's role. That is, the secondary speaker may do

more than simply echo the primary speaker's constructed

dialogue (or attitude); she may retain a separate identity

although her constructions must be referentially attrib u t e d to

the primary speaker. The speakers appear to blend their

voices so that the voice becomes not one or the other of them but both at once.

The following examples in which the primary speaker

incorporates the contributions of the secondary speaker

provide illustrations that neither speaker gives up her voice.

[30] Sara: . . . and she was like: "Oh I was just

wonderin if you wanted to see a movie or

something" and I was like: "Umm well really I

can't tonight" and she - and I said: "Well

I'll call you some other time" and she's like:

"Yeah right" and I'm like: "Don't start it -

don't - honey don't-"

Maya: -0: "Don't throw attitude"

Sara: 0: "Don't throw attitude and don't start and

don't call me up and say: 'Yeah right' at me"

In extract [30], Sara reports a conversation she had over the

phone with a former friend. Both sides of the dialogue are

152introduced with quotatives (either be like or s a y ). In the

last constructed line of Sara's first turn, she begins to construct a response to the other character's show of attitude

(conveyed by her "Yeah r i g h t " ) . Sara appears to be searching

for the right words to convey her own attitude in response to

the character as Maya completes the line for her ("D o n 't throw

a11i t u d e "). Sara then incorporates Maya's completion,

legitimizing Maya's action of constructing dialogue for her.

That is, Maya accommodates to Sara's voice by completing a

line of constructed dialogue (or attitude) which is attributed

to Sara, while Sara accommodates to Maya by repeating the

offered 1 i n e .

In the following example, Sara reports a conversation she had with her father over the telephone. Again, Maya completes

a line of dialogue which is attributed to Sara.

[31] Sara: My dad called - did 1 tell you my dad called?

My dad called to to to make it better - I was

like: "Dad I ' m over it" (falsetto) 0: "Uhh

well your mother said you were upset" I's

like: "Uh-"

Maya: *0: "Well I was upset then"-

Sara: -0: "But I was upset when I talked to her"

without a hesitation, Sara repeats the line which was

constructed by Maya. Again, the message appears to be that

153both speakers believe that they share knowledge to the extent that they can put words into each other's mouth, which, in turn, will be readily accepted and incorporated.

Extract [32] illustrates a completion by Maya of constructed dialogue attributed to Sara and a paraphrase of that bit of dialogue by Sara. We enter the conversation where Sara is reporting an interaction with a former friend who appears to have been concerned with her sexual abilities.

[32] Sara: . . . but she used to ask me that - she'slike: "Well I'm better than Bob huh?" I'slike=

Maya: =0: "Well let's see. You're using completelydifferent equipment"

Sara: 0: "Ok well considering you have differentplumbing than he's got"

Maya completes Sara's turn by constructing an utterance attributed to Sara. Sara then echoes in paraphrase and with a syntactically parallel structure the attitude expressed in the prior utterance. Zero-quotatives at these sites allow the speakers to avoid explicitly attributing constructed dialogue (or attitude) to either speaker. In these examples the form of the quotative be like which would have to be used in the zero-quotative position would be you're like. But, using you're like, which is virtually absent in this database, would

154fail to capture the fact that the speaker who is completing the other speaker's utterance would have also said or felt the same thing. The lack of a quotative appears to be a way for the speakers to intensify the involvement of theirinteraction. Zero-quotatives allow the speakers to stress their similarity and shared knowledge by constructing dialogue which, though it is structurally attributed to a sole speaker, may be spoken by either speaker.

In the following example, Maya who appears to be the secondary speaker completes Sara's previous turn. However, the dialogue which she constructs, though it must be attributed to Sara, is of such a nature that Maya, and not Sara, must be its author. Maya has graphic knowledge of thistopic that Sara does not. The result is that Maya's voice isalso heard in this response that must be ref erentiallyattributed to Sara.

[33] Sara: . . . she was talking about her tits beingreal firm and I'm like*=

Maya: =0: "Yep you're knocked up and they'll getfirm and they'll get bigger and milk will come out of three or four holes in each one just kinda haphazardly -yep"

This example illustrates that Maya is not simply converging toward Sara and losing her own voice in the process. She puts

155words into Sara's mouth (as a result of the referential attribution of the constructed dialogue) which could only have come out of her own. The following example of a supplementalso illustrates that the secondary speaker does not accommodate the primary speaker to the point of losing her own voice. Again, while the constructed dialogue must be attributed to Sara, Maya retains her voice.

[34] Sara:

Maya: Sara: Maya:

Sara:

Yeah yeah I always wanted to ask him: "Sowhat happened to your fuck?"Really 0: "The fat bitch with the nose ring"0: "The fat bitch who dances like this"0: "Who almost broke my a ikle in Bucky'sBar?"0: "Who broke my friend Maya's ankle?"

This example makes clear that Maya, the secondary speaker, is not only speaking in Sara's voice, but is adding her own. Her line "Who almost broke mv ankle in Buckv's Bar?" is said in her own voice; it was her ankle, not Sara's, that was almost broken, which is evidenced by the following line by Sara. Also the incorporation of Maya's contributed bit about the broken ankle into Sara's next turn, also points to the fact that while the lines are attributed to a single speaker, both of the speaker's voices are heard. So, it may be more appropriate to describe the speakers as sharing the role of

156p r i m a r y speaker, rather than that only the secondary speaker

is a c commodating the primary speaker.

Further support that both speakers retain their voices

rather than one speaker losing hers in the attempt to

a ccommodate the other is illustrated by the following example

in which one speaker changes the tone of the constructed

dialogue to such an extent that the topic begun by the other

speaker changes. Since, by Bublitz's definition, a secondary

speaker does not perform topical actions, what may at first

appear to be supportive behavior by the secondary speaker may

actually serve to blur the distinction between primary and

secondary speakers. When two speakers jointly construct "a

voice" in a reported interaction, there may no longer be one

primary speaker. The following extract begins with concern

being shown by Sara's mother about the kind of bars that Sara

frequents and continues with a process of joint c o n s t ruction

of Sara's response to her mother.

[35] Sara: Yeah she knows I go to Bucky's Bar because

I've told her about Bucky's - she thinks it's

the dive from hell - 0: "All those homosexual

people in there" 0: "Well you know they are

nicer people - they're better people than

everybody here so"

Maya: 0: "So that's alright and they all share

stools in there Mom"

157Sara: YeahMaya: 0: "Everybody shares a stool - every person

on earth"

Maya:

Sara: 0: "And sit on each other's laps and slidetheir hands between each other's legs"*=0: "And go: 'Whoo whoo whoo'"

Maya shifts the tone of the constructed dialogue from one in which Sara tries to reassure her mother that the people in the bar "are better people than everybody here" to one which is designed to confirm Sara's mother's worst fears. The way in which this is done is reminiscent of what Sperber and Wilson (1981) describe as "echoic mention" for ironic effect. Maya produces her first turn, with zero quotative, as an echoic mention of Sara's reassuring utterance that the bar in question is alright, yet adds a detail ("they all share stools") that is ambiguous between a reassuring fact (i.e. the people are friendly) and something not so reassuring (i.e. the people are really friendly). As the two speakers jointly construct the continuing response to "Mom," the initially reassuring content of the utterances gives way to details designed to be the opposite of reassuring, creating a strongly ironic effect. Thus, in [35], the voice replying to "Mom" is essentially Sara's, with Maya nominally contributing lines for that replying voice. However, the irony in the replying voice is introduced by Maya and taken up by Sara, with the result

158that each speaker has accommodated to the other's contribution in the construction of the replying voice.

MERGING VOICES TO REPRESENT THE VOICE OF ANOTHER CHARACTERNot only do these speakers freely speak for one another,

but they also may freely speak for another character. Zero- quotative is strongly favored at these sites where the constructed dialogue or attitude is attributed to another character. Either speaker at these sites can begin the direct speech forms (either to construct dialogue or attitude).

In extracts [ 36 ] and [ 37 ] , Maya and Sara construct dialogue (or attitude) for the same character, Al. In extract [36], Maya describes Al's reaction to a former friend. Sara echoes the attitude attributed by Maya to Al.

[36] Maya: He walked by and Al went: "Oooo charming"Sara: 0: "Pretty"Maya: 0: "It's my dude"

All three expressions occurring in direct speech forms are attributed to Al. Either speaker may construct Al's attitude, whether she was present for the reported interaction or not.

In extract [37], Sara is reporting an interaction that took place involving Al (ii£) , Ellen (she) and herself. She constructs attitude attributed to Al which is echoed by Maya.

159[37] Sara:

M a y a :

Sara: Maya:

And he looked at me like: /"Thanks"//0: "I'd love/ to

talk to you but"0: "But she's there"0: "But she's here and I don't have my Lysol"

Maya constructs attitude for Al even though she wasn't present for the reported interaction. It appears that these speakers can freely construct attitude for a character whom they believe they know well.

In extract [38], Ellen is again the topic. Maya has been discussing the relationship between Ellen and a character who Maya and Sara believe to be Ellen's only friend. She constructs an interaction between the two characters in which Ellen asks her friend why, in effect, he is her only friend. Sara and Maya then construct a response to the dialogue attributed to Ellen.

[38] Maya: And she can also tell him: "Everybody in theworld is evil except for me and you - tell me why that is - tell me why I'm such a good person and people do such bad things to me"

Sara: 0: "Cause everybody in the world is a sadistand=

Maya: =0: "You're a masochist"Sara: 0: "And you're just a fucked up"=

160Maya: -0: "Cause you're the scapegoat of the world

Ellen - we're /all bad people and you're/=Sara: /0: "We're all out to get you"/Maya: =the prototype human being that was turned off

the assembly line and we're all fuck ups that were thrown out the back window"

Though the constructed response to the call for an explanation may be structurally attributed to the him in the first turn, the sarcastic response is obviously not one that would be made by Ellen's friend. The two speakers jointly construct this response which expresses the attitude shared by them. Because Maya and Sara know they share the same attitude towards Ellen, they can direct at her a set of zero-marked constructed responses which are attributed to a sole speaker.

In the next extract, Maya reports that Kim's boyfriend claimed to have prayed every night until a reconciliation between them took place. Maya, after suggesting that the claim is a "good line," dramatically constructs the utterance in direct speech forms. The line which is zero-introduced may be attributed to Kim's boyfriend or anyone who would use such a line. Sara and Maya jointly construct a response to the line.

161[39] Sara

Maya

Sara Maya:

> Sara:

Maya :

Sara: Maya: Sara; Maya: Sara:

Kim said that he prayed every nightUh-hm prayed for peace well it's a good lineanywayOh really0: "I prayed about you every night"0: "I prayed about you" 0: "Hey I'll talkto you"0: "Put a ring on me hey oooh I'm yours - no

problem"0: "Now that you found the lord"0: "Now that you found the lord"0: "What are we waiting for?"0: "And the power of prayer"0: "The power of prayer"

Notice that in the line of the extract marked with an arrow that Sara both repeats the I prayed about vou line and constructs a response to the line. This bit of dialogue must be attributed to two different characters (similar to Maya's construction earlier - 0: "Good morning Maya" (harsh voice!0: "Fuck vou"). The X in "I prayed about you" becomes the vou in "Hey I'll talk to you" and the vou becomes the X* Though neither is introduced with a quotative, the turn-taking structure allows for the switch in character voices. After Sara begins in this turn to give voice to a character responding to the "line", she and Maya jointly construct the

162response by repeating, paraphrasing and supplementing each other.

In extract [40], Sara reports her desire to tell Kim's boyfriend that Kim is pregnant. She creates a scenario in which she does tell him and describes what his response would b e .

[40] Sara: . . . I'm tempted to tell him: "Did you knowyour girlfriend's pregnant?" just to watch his eyes bug out of his head

Maya: Watch him go: (low pitch) "Huh?"Sara: (low pitch) 0: "It's not mine"

Maya echoes in syntactically parallel verbal terms the physical response (watch his eves bug out of his head) which Sara predicts that the boyfriend would have. That is, watching his eyes bug out of his head is roughly equivalent to watching him go: (low pitch) "Huh?" Sara then, whilemaintaining the feature of low pitch, constructs another line for the character. By echoing the voice quality and using a zero-quotative, Sara joins Maya in creating a voice for the boyfriend.

In extract [41], the speaker who describes a situation also constructs the first line of dialogue for the character.

163[41] Kaya: Jimmy is such a granny - can you imagine him

in bed - (falsetto) 0: "Let's put some nicepaper towels down"

Sara: (falsetto) 0: "Get a bottle of Chloraseptic"Maya: (falsetto) 0: "Could you get that 409? Could

you kinda swab the tip of your penis before I put it in my mouth?"

Maya clearly marks that the dialogue which follows is constructed by asking her listeners to "imagine" Jimmy in bed2. Then she marks a change from her voice to that of Jimmy by a shift in voice quality, as well as an accent shift. She and Sara jointly construct Jimmy's side of a dialogue in bed. They merge their voices to become the parodied voice of Jimmy.

In the following example, the first speaker describes a situation and then the following speaker constructs the first line of dialogue within that situation. Sara has been telling Maya that one of their mutual friends decided to change her life after having "found the Lord" as she was coming down from tripping.

[42] Sara: They'd just come down from tripping and Ithink they decided they were going to hell in a handbasket

164Maya: (falsetto) 0: IIOkay I've had too many

chemicals and now Satan - Lucifer will comefor me"

Sara: 0 : tlMy defenses are weakened and Satan willsend his demons to possess me"

Maya: 0: "And I'll have to sign a contract and I'llhave to write it in blood"

Maya indicates by speaking with a voice quality that differs from her usual that the words she is speaking are not to be attributed to herself but rather to the character mentioned previously by Sara. What Maya seems to do is construct a parody of what the character might have said (to herself) in this situation and Sara continues the parodied fear of satanic possession. Sara's paraphrase of Maya's first line is followed by a further construction by Maya which, like the previous two constructions, also has a compound sentence structure. As in the previous example, the use of zero- quota tive before lines of constructed dialogue (or attitude) attributed to another character appears to allow the two speakers to merge their voices to speak in the (parodied) voice of that character.

The merging of the speakers' voices to become the voice of a character seems to confirm the extent of the speakers' shared knowledge and experience. Not only does each speaker know the other well enough that they can merge their voices to

165become the single voice of both, but they also share extensive knowledge of persons in their social circle. They both appear to accept the fact that they know these persons equally well. Given a situation in which one of these persons is involved, either speaker can begin to construct dialogue (or attitude) for the character whether she establishes the setting or not. The two speakers can then merge their own voices to become the voice of the character. The fact that the character's voice is often parodied indicates that the speakers not only know the character equally well but that they also apparently share the same judgement of the character (a further indication of the sameness or similarity of the speakers). Furthermore, as mentioned in a previous section, a speaker can superimpose her voice over the voice of a character. One way of achieving this quality of double-voicedness is with parody. That is, in the previous examples, not only is the character's voice heard, but also the merged voices of the two speakers.

W H E R E Z E R O - Q U O T A T I V E S AR E D I S F A V O R E D

Throughout this chapter, I have focused on sites where zero-quotatives appear to be favored before direct speech forms used as constructed dialogue. There is one site, however, at which zero-quotatives appear to be highly disfavored. At such a site, the constructed dialogue is always introduced with a quotative. In the following extract,

166a constructed utterance is attributed to another speaker within the scenario created by constructed dialogue.

[43] Sara: . . . he's like: "Oh I forgot - I wasstanding out back and Ellen was talking to me and that song came one and she's like: 'Comedance come dance' and so I was gonna go dance with her but then I saw you and I started dancing with you - I guess she's probably mad at me"

within the constructed dialogue which Sara attributes to is constructed dialogue which the attributes to she. This constructed utterance f * Come dance come danceM is introduced by the quotative be like. It appears that a constructed utterance which appears within the current of ongoing constructed dialogue must be introduced with a quotative. If a quotative had not been used at this site, attribution of the utterance would be difficult to make.

Extract [44] is another example of a constructed utterance within constructed dialogue. Again, the constructed utterance spoken by a character other than the reporting speaker within the scenario created by the constructed dialogue is introduced with a quotative.

167[44] Sara: . . . and I said: "Well I'll call you some

other time" and she's like: "yeah right" andI'm 1 ike: "Don't start it - don't - honeydon't="

Maya: *0: "Don't throw attitude"Sara: 0: "Don't throw attitude and don't start and

don't call me up and say: 'Yeah right' at me"

The speaker of the dialogue begun in Sara's last turn is Sara herself. Within this dialogue attributed to Sara is an utterance attributed to Ellen and introduced with sav.

In extract [45], Maya and Sara jointly construct a response to Sara's mother. During the construction of the response, Maya gives voice to the people from the bar that she and Sara are describing.

[45] Maya: 0: "Everybody shares a stool - every personon earth"

Sara: 0: "And sit on each other's laps and slidetheir hands between each other's legs"*1

Maya: =0: "And go: 'Whoo whoo whoo'"

The sounds attributed to the people at the bar fWhoo whoo whoo) are introduced with the quotative g o .

In extract [46], Sara is reporting a conversation she had with Lea. Within the dialogue that is attributed to Lea

168(she), a constructed utterance is attributed to another character. Again, this constructed utterance is introduced with a quotative, be like.

[46] Sara: . . . she's like you know: "He talks to me onThursday night and I go home with him and on Friday I see him and he's just like: 'Hey' andand" you know "I sit there every day and is hegonna call and he never calls . . ."

These examples indicate that zero-quotatives are strongly disfavored where an utterance is being constructed within a constructed utterance.

SUMMARYIn summary, zero-quotatives appear to be optional at some

sites, favored at others, and strongly disfavored at still others. Zero-quotative appears to intensify the involvementachieved, in part, with the involvement strategies mentionedin Chapter 3. The lack of explicit attribution with direct speech forms both reflects and calls for involvement between the interactants. From my data, it would appear that aquotative must occur before a constructed utterance which is contained within another constructed utterance, as in the previous section. It appears that zero-quotatives areoptional where, by taking advantage of the conventional turn-

169taking structure, constructed dialogue can be attributed to the appropriate character. Zero-quotatives also appear to be optional when a speaker is clearly constructing attitude. As noted in the last chapter, be like also frequently occurs with such constructed utterances.

Zero-quotatives appear to be favored when the omission of a quotative may serve some dramatic effect, such as in the examples in which the use of a zero-quotative in the report of an interaction is an iconic representation of one aspect of that interaction (e.g. urgency). Zero-quotatives also are favored at sites where the conversation participants display strong convergence behavior. At these sites, zero-quotative appears to make even stronger the involvement which results from the production of direct speech forms in general. The absence of a quotative allows the speakers to avoid explicitly attributing constructed dialogue (or attitude) to either speaker. Although the constructed utterances are structurally attributed to a sole speaker, the lack of explicit attribution allows the speakers to stress their similarity by constructing utterances which may be spoken by either speaker. When the speakers use zero-quotatives to construct dialogue (or attitude) which must be attributed to another character, the lack of explicit attribution again allows the speakers to merge their voices, but, in this case, to represent another character. Merging their voices to become that of a character appears to be another means for the speakers to underscore

170their sameness. Their shared knowledge and experience allows them to not only speak for each other, but also, for persons in their social circle.

CONCLUSION

There has been no attempt here to generalize the findings

from this data to natural conversations at large. This data

is perhaps somewhat particular, given tie age range of the

all-female participants. The data is also defined by the fact

that the participants are intimate familiars, where perhaps

the exchange of information is of less importance than it

would be in conversations among, for example, professional

colleagues or between social unequals. The participants in this study devote little conversational work to the exchange

of information. In fact, I've attempted to show in the analysis the extent to which the participants underscore their

shared knowledge and experience. It would appear that part of

what they share is the high value placed on being entertained

and entertaining during the course of a conversation. And,

one popular means to achieve entertainment for these

pa r t i cipants is to dramatize their talk by using direct speech

forms to represent past interactions or to represent what they

ap p a r e n t l y intend to be the essence of a character. This is

not to say that the participants do not discuss serious

topics; indeed, one session between Maya and Sara is quite

emoti o n a l l y charged during the earnest discussion of the

p r e g n a n c y of Sara's roommate. But even during this discussion

they dramatize their feelings towards the dilemma with direct

speech forms. With more light-hearted topics, they obviously

are simply having fun playing word games with the knowledge

171

172they share about other people or about each other, bringing into focus their closeness and their shared distance from certain others. And, part of what determines their closeness, their similarities to one another and their distance, their dissimilarities to others is the type of topics which they address. Unselfconsciously, they discuss with gusto what may once have been taboo subjects for young women (see, for example, the sample data from Session 2 in the Appendix) . Given the particularities of this data, then, I have not made broad generalizations to other discourse types.

However, given the limited attention that has been paid to discourse features examined in this study, the possibility that similar features characterize, in part, other discourse types cannot be dismissed. For example, it is worth noting again that what I've referred to as zero-quotative appeared in the conversation data presented in Craig and Tracy's (1983) Conversational Coherence but was ignored despite the extensive, fine-grained analysis which the conversation received. It may be the case that other discourse data may be marked to varying degrees by the features described here.

Future investigations might explore the use of the discourse features described here in other discourse types to see if such features function similarly. Or, if these features do not occur, investigations might be made to determine if other discourse features fulfill the functions attributed to the features described here. Tannen (1986)

173notes the common use of both be like and zero-quotative and suggests their position on a continuum; however, the continuum appears to be the result of speculation, not consistent analytical study. Future studies might explore, for example, whether or not each speaker has his/her own particular continuum from which the speaker chooses a quotative as a result of a consideration of speaking conditions (e.g. intimacy of the interactants).

There is also clearly a need for further study of the ways in which speakers organize what they have to report in order to make those reports entertaining. As a discipline, linguistics has tended to take an extremely literal and formal approach to the nature of language. With its emphasis on the formal features, mainstream linguistics has ignored the fact that speakers, in addition to acquiring syntax and phonology, acquire a means of making sense of the world and, I would suggest, making fun of it. The vitality of most language in use does not seem to survive the analytic dissection carried out much of the time in formal linguistics. I hope that I have managed to emphasize some of the vitality in the language use of the speakers in my study and would trust that the type of analysis presented here, combining formal and functional criteria, will become more common in the future and allow us to see language fulfilling its vital role in human affairs rather than as a lifeless object reduced by our own self- imposed analytic constraints.

I have judged comes u p to not be a quotative but, rather, a verb of motion followed by a zero-quotative site. This judgment is supported by the appearance of verbs of motion followed by a quotative. The following extracts are such examples:

[a] she comes over and she's like: "I ran over here”[b] he walked by and said: "Haaaa"[c] they do come back and go: "Maan"[d] Don who looks real butch but is this major nellie

queen comes runnin up and goes: "Now just nod your head - nod your head"

[ e ] Bob came haul in ass over there and goes: "Man Ican't believe he asked you that”

[f] She comes up to you and says: "Hey Maya"

So it would appear that in extract [5], comes u p . rather than functioning as a quotative as gg may, is followed by a zero-quotative site.

Recall from the discussion of represented speech and thought in Chapter One that a clue that what one is reading is intended to be interpreted as the represented speech or thought of a character rather than as the voice of the narrator are words like imagine or thought or

175decide. Maya here similarly appears to signal that she is about to construct dialogue for Jinuony with imagine. although it is she (and then Sara) who is imagining and not Jimmy.

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Martinus Nijhoff.

APPENDIXIncluded in this Appendix are samples of transcribed discourse

from each of the four occasions when interactions were

recorded. These extended transcriptions are intended to

provide a general impression of the nature of the interactions

involved and to provide larger contextual settings for many of

the smaller extracts used in the discussion and analysis

presented in Chapters 3, 4, and 5.

184

185DATA

Sara

Kim: Maya: Sara:

Maya: Sara:

SET 1 (SAMPLE)

You know what Don - this was what I was laughin about on the phone when I was laughing real hard -last night - Alan met Don and was talking to him -and Don calls Bob 'puppy' - I don't know if you all knew that - M-hm NoDon calls Bob 'puppy' and uh - Alan's like: "Youreally ought to call him 'Bobo'" and he said Donfell out /laughing/ and he's like: "Oh really?Why?" and Alan=/Oh my God/=told him the story about Bobo - Bobo the clown and all - everything that goes on - like just some ofthe stuff that goes on in B and how the B_____people think about it - and he said Don was just falling out - and so anyway - he said he was standing there and he was just out dancing around on the edge of the dance floor and Don who looks real Butch but is this major Nellie Queen comes running up to him and goes: "Now just nod yourhead - nod your head" - and Bob was standing over there watching with this horrified - Alan said he had this totally horrified look on his face - and

Maya:

Sara:

Maya: Sara: Maya:

Sara: Maya:

186uh - Don goes: "Nod your head - nod your head" andso Alan's like: "Oh okay" and he says: "Now takeyour hands and go like this" and so Alan did like that (holding hands about ten inches apart) and then he's: "Okay now nod again - okay okay thanks"and um - urn he just like took off and then Bob came haulin' ass over there and goes: "Man I can'tbelieve he asked you that - I can't believe he asked you that" and Alan's like: "What?" and hesays: "Did he just ask you how big your dick was?"and Alan is like: "Yeah"0: "It's this big" - I told Liz that I - I callhim Son of Gumbi and she said she'll start making everybody call him that in Houston - she cracked up- she bought me a beer - 0: "Yeah he kinda doeslook like Play-Doh doesn't he?" and I'm like: "Yeah"Apparently he told Bob: "I'm gonna go ask him howbig his dick is - I think he's cute"Really? Uh ohJust to wreck Bob's nervesOh okay I thought maybe he really thought he was cuteOh no - just to wreck Bob Well that's kinda sad

Sara:

Toni: Sara: Haya: Kim: Sara: Maya:

Toni: Sara: Maya: Sara: Kim: Maya: Kim: Maya:

Sara: Kim: Sara:

187Oh I bet - /Alan's terrified - he's like/: "UhhNellie=

/Why would that bother Bob?/=Queen!Really? I still've never met this person Yeah but you saw him You've seen himI've seen him but he really hasn't stood out in mymind - whoever he isWhy would that bother Bob?Why?Bob's like - his slaveDon acolyteBob wants to be DonHe's a Don-wannabeHe doesn't wanna be like Don*=He chokes his chicken at night and goes: "Ohplease please" - /he's so/ excited about him it's sick

/he uh/That's why he doesn't haveHe uh told - he said - Alan said - yeah Bob had told him that: "Oh yeah - Don and I are gettinalong really well tonight" and uh - Alan's talkin to Don and he's like: "Bob says you're gettinalong really well tonight" and apparently - Don was

Maya:

Sara: Kim:

Maya: Sara:

188like: "Well I just told him to bite my ass aboutten minutes ago - I guess you can call that getting along real well"Well you have to get mighty close to bite somebody's ass Bite my assSign of true friendship - now the question is - did BobNoo - he wanted to real bad thoughUh - he got the true story about the Ministry thing from - from from Don last night - Alan told me - told me and Jim today and we were both just like - every - apparently everybody at Ministry hated him

189DATA

Sara:

Maya:

Sara:

Maya:

Sara:

Maya: Sara:

SET 2 (SAMPLE)

And she's like: "Well" you know - "I'm still having those problems"Yeah and she tells me about her stool and I don't care=0: "I got this runny stool" and I'm like: "Yeahand I had runny eggs for breakfast this morning so shut up bitch"Oh God - I just don' t want to hear about her buttholeShe called me the other night and -uh - she's like: (falsetto) "So hey whatcha doin?" and I'm like: "Oh I'm sittin here watchin TV" - Kim and I were - that's the night we took Leon over to Port Allen and I was like: "I'm about to pick up Leon" andKim was sittin there and she was like: "Oh I wasjust wonderin if you wanted to see a movie or something" and I was like: "Umm well really Ican't tonight" and she - and I said: "Well I'llcall you some other time" and she's like: "Yeahright" and I'm like: "Don't start it - don't -honey - don't"0: "Don't throw attitude"0: "Don't throw attitude and don't start and don'tcall me up and say 'Yeah right' at me"

M a y a :

Sara:

Maya:

Sara: Maya:

190She called me the other day and I haven't been calling her because I just don't want to deal with her but every time I see her I'm nice to her - it's not like I'm mean and she was tellin me how she was so disappointed in B— - she had moved down here with so many high hopes and and so so many people she wanted to get to know and they turned out to all be jerks and she's like: "Like you - you weresupposed to be" - you know - "a really good friend of mine and interested in being my close friend"== (falsetto) 0: "And you turned out to be thiswalking talking rectum and I just can't stand it and everybody here is just so fucked up" - I'm like: "Yeah well and/you're not"//She's normal/ yeah she's fine - you know - just totally obsessed with her anus and running around whining about how wonderful they are and how shitty the earth is so==M-hm=*=I just told her not - I asked her to not lay guilt on me - (falsetto) 0: "Oh I'm not - I'm not" and Ig o : "Ellen you don't even know what you do" andshe gets mad if I get defensive with her but I got really mad at her once and I like picked her up by her collar at the bar and pushed her over the couch

Sara: Maya:

191and so now if I start to get made she hurries up and fixes it**(falsetto) 0: "Oh I'm sorry*= I'm like: "LOOK don't you" (falsetto) 0: "No nono - I don't mean it - I don't mean it" like I'll come to her house and beat her up - knock on the door with five knuckles (knocking sounds) (whispering) 0: "Let me in"

192DATA

Sara Maya Sara: Maya: Sara:

Maya:

Sara: Maya: Sara:

Maya:

Sara:

Maya:

Sara:

Maya:

SET 3 (SAMPLE)

That's how Stacy found the lord Yeah - is it? - she hallucinated?Well noOh they were trippingShe hallucinated a little too often I think and it scared herThey were tripping when they had that realization about the lord weren't they?YeahThat's pretty niceWell no no they'd just come down from tripping and I think they decided they were going to hell in a handbasket(falsetto) 0: "OK I've had too many chemicals andnow Satan - Lucifer will come for me"0: "My defenses are weakened and Satan will sendhis demons to possess me"0: "And I'll have to sign a contract and I'll have to write it in blood"Yep - Kim still hasn't gone to get a pregnancy test yet - she's at least three three weeks plus late nowShe's pregnant

193Sara: And she won't talk about it - everytime I bring it

up she's just like: "Well" and she says like well she doesn't say anything about it to Mike I'm tempted to tell him: "Did you know yourgirlfriend's pregnant?" just to watch his eyes bug out of his head

Maya: Watch him go: (low pitch) "Huh?"Sara: (low pitch) 0: "It's not mine"Maya: I hope she's not but I'm pretty sureSara: I hope he doesn't dump her when she isMaya: I really don't think he will - I don't know if

he'll marry her but I don't think he'll dump her - I think he'll strongly suggest that she get an abortion and even if she decides to have it I don't think he'll dump her cause I mean he's like whined over her and lost weight over her and you know and is even thinking about the lord because of her I think maybe

Sara: Is he thinking about the lord?Maya: A little bitSara: Is he gonna find the lord?Maya: No but he prayed every night while they were apart

and and he prayed for peace and he got it so Sara: Are you serious? Who told you that?Maya: KimSara: Kim said that he prayed every night

Maya: Sara: Maya: Sara:

Maya:

Sara: Maya: Sara: Maya: Sara: Maya:

Sara:

Maya:

Sara:

Maya:

194Uh-hm prayed for peace well it's a good line anyway Oh really/0: "I prayed about you every night"//0: "I prayed about you"/ 0: "Hey I'lltalk to you"0: "Put a ring on me hey oooh I'm yours - noproblem"0: "Now that you found the lord"0: "Now that you found the lord"0: "What are we waiting for?"0: "And the power of prayer"0: "The power of prayer"I don't know he's he's they're such an odd couple you knowI think the reason they get along so well is that they're both completely melodramatic - I used to hear them on the phone - I can just I'd just sit there and listen to them and just like: (harshvoice) "Ugh god"She's like: (breathy voice) "We're both alike we're both absolutely alike we're both so mushy" - I's like: "Better you than me"She's in there and she's like: (breathy voice) "Ilove you Mike" - I'm like: (harsh voice) "Ugh ughgag a maggot"And then you projectile yak across the living room

Sara:

Maya: Sara: Maya:

Sara:

195I ralph across the living room - he comes into the door and like she flies into his arms Glues herself to him(harsh voice) 0: "Would you stop that?"I hate being there when they're fucking because I meanoh oh god

196DATA

Maya

Sara: Maya: Sara:

Maya: Sara: Maya: Sara:

Maya:

SET 4 (SAMPLE)

Who have I told a lie to recently? I can't even remember stuff like that cuz—=No cuz it just happensYeah you just kinda go: "Whoops"Unless it's a really really big one like us getting home and my mom asked me - she went to bed when we went out Friday night and my room went to bed when we left - we left at like ten-thirty - my room's going to bed so the next morning she's like: (falsetto) "So what time did you get in?" We got in like at two-thirty - (falsetto) 0: "Well I gothome around a little after one" cause they sleep like the dead - they don't hear us come in anyway and uh so (falsetto) 0: "Did you all have a nicetime?" (falsetto) 0: "Yeah"Does she know where you all go?Yeah she knew we went out to a bar Oh did she?Yeah I think my mom thinks - well she doesn't think I should drink and I don't think my dad cares one way or the other as long as he doesn't know about it - as long as it doesn't get thrown in his face like I don't get picked up for a DWI or- -Throw up on his shoes

Sara:

Maya: Sara:

Maya:

Sara: Maya: Sara:

Maya: Sara:

Maya: Sara:

197Or throw up on his shoes or come home and stuff - I get up the next morning - I'm like: "Hey dad - howya doin?" Of course I get up - that means I have to get up at nine or so the next morning you know Saturday /morning/- my=

/Yeah/=mom came in there and like peeked in on us which means I'm supposed to get up and I got up at nine and Kim slept til like twelve-thirty - I'm like: (harsh voice) "Get up - get up you heathen"0: "Get out now - get out of that bed" - did shego to church with you?Yes she didWow what time was church if she slept that long?Oh no that was Sunday morning was church - I was talking about Saturday morning Ooh oh okay I was confusedYeah Sunday I got up about an hour before she did - my mom was like (stuttering - unintelligible) do - you know - what do you tell - what do you tell them? 0: "Well I was just sitting in this bar andthis band was playing and I'm just sitting there" YeahMy dad's looking at me like: "Yeah right uh-huh" -Mom goes: "Ah see anyone you know there?" 0: "Nothank God"

Maya:

Sara:

Maya:

Sara: Maya: Sara:

Maya: Sara:

Maya:

Sara: Maya:

Sara:

Maya:

1980: "No thank the Lord - in Vicksburg - I did not"- I mean - what would - she - okay - it'd just be the drinking that would bother her? She wouldn't be like==No if I was - you know - sucking dick in the bathroom==Well well that would disturb almost any patron aswell as a parentReallyBut I don't knowIt's strange me being in a bar - she doesn't mind - she knows I go to bars Does she?Yeah she know I go to Bucky's Bar because I've told her about Bucky's - she thinks it's the dive from hell - 0: "All those homosexual people in there"0: "Well you know they are nicer people - they'rebetter people than everybody here so"0: "So that's alright and they all share stools inthere Mom"Yeah0: "Everybody shares a stool - every person onearth"0: "And sit on each other's laps and slide theirhands between each other's legs"==0: "And go: 'Whoo whoo whoo'"

Sara: Maya:

Sara:

Maya:

199Yeah. 0: "'Whooga whooga whooga'"It seems like I haven't been there in a long timebut -wait - have I gone recently? ManEverybody - you said you went out for a littlewhile SaturdayYeah that's right - I forgot

VITA

Terrie Mathis was born into the family of Ruby and Daniel

Mathis in November of 1962. She grew up in the farming

community of Belknap, Illinois in the midst of several

brothers and sisters and her Aunt Marguerite. After

completing high school in nearby Vienna, she attended Murray

State U niversity in western Kentucky for three years before

transferring to Southern Illinois University. She completed

a B.A. in English and a B.S. in Finance in December of 19B6.

She began attending Louisiana State Univer s i t y in the fall of

1987 and received her M.A. in Linguistics in May of 1991. She

plans to receive her Ph.D. in Linguistics in December of 1991.

200

DOCTORAL EXAMINATION AND DISSERTATION REPORT

Candidate: Terrie Mathis

Maj°r Linguistics

Title of Dissertation: The Form and Function of ConstructedDialogue in Reported Discourse

Approved:

U Lj u U ________Major Profeopor anp Chairman

Dean of the Graduate School

EXAMINING COMMITTEE:

~ ~ r "

/{. tty__4f ' f

jA - - / — _________________*

Date of Examination:

N o v e m b e r 1st, 1991